


Needing, Not Wanting

by BittyBabyBee, driftingthroughthevoid



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Canon-Typical Violence, Consensual Underage Sex, Death, Hurt/Comfort, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Minor Original Character(s), Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Smut, anyone that died in canon is probably going to die in this fic, i mean it is vampires, lestat is a homewrecker as per usual, mostly plot dont worry guys, the death tag isnt just for victims
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-09-02 09:48:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16784545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BittyBabyBee/pseuds/BittyBabyBee, https://archiveofourown.org/users/driftingthroughthevoid/pseuds/driftingthroughthevoid
Summary: In which vampirism comes with Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, and things get even more complicated.(Currently on a hiatus, but with plenty a mind to continue! The authors are just knee-deep in other responsibilities and don't feel that they can write new chapters for this to the best of their ability.)





	1. prologue - Promise

**Author's Note:**

> I can explain, I swear.

The Master had always exuded a sense of _power_.

Not power in the sense that he was the master of the house, or that he was the patron of the boys he took in and trained in the arts. No, not even because he was a full two heads taller than Amadeo himself; though having to tip his head back and roll up onto the balls of his feet for a kiss certainly reinforced that sense of power.

It was almost indescribable, though Amadeo often sat during the long, lonely days and tried to capture it in ink and parchment. Something in the Master's eyes, perhaps. The intensity of his gaze, the deep-set blue eyes under thick, but kind eyebrows. Or maybe it was the way he carried himself. Head held high, shoulders square with relaxed strength, pacing softly among the canvases of the apprentices and pausing now and then to offer instruction, sometimes even guiding a brush with his large, pale hand over a smaller one.

Whatever it was, it drew Amadeo irresistably to it. During the day, he slept and ate and painted and danced with his brothers- for they were all family in the palazzo- but there was something hollow about him. The other boys would glance knowingly amongst each other, watching as the auburn-haired youth dutifully pulled away from his work and padded down the halls to the master's lair each sunset. Amadeo didn't care what they thought, though there was never any sense of hostility. Only amusement. 

Once enclosed in the sumptuous lair, Amadeo would curl up in the huge, velvet-draped nest of a bed and sleep. Sometimes he would sit at the master's own desk, looking over the papers he could read and wondering at the ones he could not. Either way, he was always greeted with a kiss.

"Master," he breathed, blinking the sleep from his eyes. On this day, the boys had gone into town and Amadeo had gamely gone along, laughing at the antics of Riccardo and one of the newer apprentices as they drank themselves under a table and sang so uproariously that they had been kicked out, in the end. He'd curled up amongst the silky sheets and fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillows.

The Master was gazing down at him lovingly, the knuckles of one cool hand brushing against Amadeo's cheek. White-blonde hair spilled over his shoulders, creating a half-curtain around them, and Amadeo felt such strong affection suddenly that he surged up for another kiss almost before he realized he meant to.

"What's this about?" the Master laughed when their lips parted, moving to sit on the bed next to the auburn-haired boy. Amadeo shrugged helplessly before sitting up and stretching luxuriously, aware of the faintly heated gaze on his naked body.

Amadeo didn't fully know either; he felt a need to be close to his Master, stronger than the longing of the long, sunlit days. It was nearly frantic. He squirmed out of the tangle of blankets and into the Master's lap hungrily, boldly taking his face in his hands and kissing him again. This time, the Master yielded to him, letting the boy plunder his mouth and lap greedily at the Blood when he generously cut his tongue on his fangs.

 _This_ , Amadeo thought distantly, as every pore in his body sang with the small mouthfuls of Blood that the Master allowed. This was the power.

When, after rather longer than he usually allowed, the Master gently disengaged them, Amadeo was licking his lips and making a small, needy noise. He'd twisted in the Master's lap so that their fronts were flush and his legs were spread to either side of his waist. Greedily, he canted his hips forward again, making the hardness between his legs known.

"Greedy," the Master agreed, chastising the boy with no true annoyance. In fact, his large hands were already at Amadeo's hips, controlling the smooth roll of them against his hard stomach and making the boy gasp.

Through the growing haze of lust, Amadeo still felt that something was off. Not the fact that the Master was yielding to his wiles more readily than he ever had, no...or perhaps it was? He was rapidly losing the will to consider such things, especially when the Master grew impatient with his boy rutting against him and suddenly twisted, dropping him onto his back on the bed.

Amadeo threw his head back with a cry when the Master took him into his mouth with next to no forewarning, spreading his slim legs and burying his hands into lush blonde hair. The Master made an approving noise like a growl, letting the sound vibrate in his mouth and around the boy's cock, flicking his tongue along the underside and carefully curling his lips over the sharp fangs.

"More," the boy keened, rolling his hips up and whining when the Master's strong hands suddenly pinned him down. The sound escalated into a moan as the Master bobbed his head, establishing a rhythm around him and making the boy's back arch against the sheets.

It was overwhelming; the hot, encasing warmth and the smooth, slick texture of his mouth as the Master hollowed his cheeks and sucked in earnest. Glistening drops of pre formed and were quickly lapped up, making Amadeo shudder and buck helplessly. "More!"

Instead of complying, though, the Master lifted his head, letting the boy's slick cock slide out of his mouth. The cool air was nearly intolerable, making him keen and wriggle. "So greedy," the Master chided again. Amadeo had enough wits about him to flush, biting his lips and looking away even as his hips rolled up under the Master's hands. When the Master neither continued his ministrations nor continued to speak, Amadeo looked over bashfully, and then quickly away, hiding his face against the pillow.

The Master was gazing at him now with such love that he almost felt silly, laying there naked and with his cock reddened and slick with saliva. Such an expression was meant for works of art, and yet it was being directed at him. Once again, more strongly than ever, he felt that something was different tonight. "Master," he began, taking a steadying breath and swallowing down against the heat in his throat, "Is something the matter?"

At this, the thick brow furrowed, the deeply-set eyes already dark with lust seeming to darken further. "What do you mean, my child?"

Amadeo felt a thrill of pleasure at the possessive moniker, but didn't know how to explain himself. He half-shrugged and looked to one side, studying the organized chaos of the Master's desk. "I don't know. Something seems...different, tonight," he said, feeling rather foolish. He wished he weren't having this conversation with his cockhead scant inches from the Master's full lips.

The Master seemed not to care, looking down at the smooth planes of Amadeo's chest and stomach as he pondered, or perhaps gathered his thoughts, before replying. "I have much on my mind," he explained, but left it at that.

His large, cool hands settled along his boy's sides, then followed the curve of his waist and ribs up until the thumbs brushed against his nipples. Amadeo gasped as he was enveloped in the tight, sucking heat of the Master's mouth again a moment later, hands scrabbling at the sheets, and then jerking up and tangling into the blonde hair as he hummed against his cock and flicked his thumbs across the hard pinkish nubs at the same time.

The vibrations sent heat shooting up the boy's spine and back down into his loins, pooling deliciously, unbearably. He was going to come--!

But he did not. The Master looped his thumb and forefinger around the base of his twitching erection at the last moment, sliding up until only the head was still in his mouth and sucking hard. Amadeo _cried_ at the intense stimulation, writhing against the hand that again held his hips pinned helplessly. "Master--"

"Hmm?" he teased, flicking his tongue against the slit at the tip of his member. Amadeo shuddered and jerked, clinging to the bedsheets with his knees up. He needed to come! The relentless stimulation of his oversensitive cockhead was going to drive him mad.

Finally, the boy was curled up so far that his entire upper back was off the bed, shoulders nearly touching his splayed knees, gulping for air as the Master ran his fingers up and down the rest of his length, milking him to orgasm and then through each intense, crashing wave of sensation.

When he was done, Amadeo fell back against the sheets bonelessly, twitching as the Master swallowed around his softening length and then drew back, lifting himself up on his arms to press a kiss to the boy's forehead. 

For awhile afterwards, they merely lay together, the Master shifting to one side to lay next to Amadeo, arm around him, his larger body wrapping around him with their legs tangled. The breeze carried in through the windows, coupled with being enveloped in a cooler body, made him shiver; and then the Master pulled a blanket up from the tangle of the nest and over his boy and everything was perfect. Amadeo's eyelids grew heavy, nestled against the chest of his Master, and he fell into a dreamy doze.

"Amadeo," the Master said after what could have been minutes or hours; he was half asleep now, content and warm. He stirred a little at the sound of his name, a lazy smile spreading across his features as the Master stroked his cheek. "Amadeo, do not sleep yet. We need to speak tonight."

That roused him. The boy blinked sleepily, unfurling his legs and looking up over his arm. "What is it, Master?" he asked, voice soft with sleep. Anxiety was creeping in on the post-coital haze now. Something...something in the Master's voice. It must have shown on his face, for no sooner than he had said it, the Master was gathering him closer into his arms and petting his hair with one broad hand.

"Nothing terrible, my child. Gather yourself first, and then we shall talk."

Amadeo sat up obediently as the Master peeled away from him, graceful as a cat. Thoughts tumbled around in his mind in spite of the reassurance. Was he going to be sent away? All of the boys would eventually be sent to university, he knew, but they had been glad to go. Amadeo had seen some of them off when the Master could not, bound to the night as he apparently was.

"You are not being exiled from here, little one," the Master shushed, a note of humor in his voice. "Don't let that idea trouble you." He relaxed his hold to gaze at Amadeo, halfway off the bed, and once again the boy felt strongly that he was being looked upon as some heavenly vision, instead of a pretty, naked boy with tangled hair and a spent cock. "Why don't you make use of the bath? There are fresh clothes ready for you."

Ever mercifully all-knowing. Amadeo nodded silently. He was feeling rather self-conscious already, lying nude in the bed with a sheen of cooled sweat making the sheets and his hair stick to him unpleasantly. Of course he wasn't shy about his body, but coupled with the mounting anxiety of the coming 'talk', he could hardly help feeling gangly and awkward. The Master took his wrist before he went, drawing him back in for another kiss, softer and without the heat of before. Amadeo tasted himself on those lips, and it felt scandalous and embarrassing. 

"Sort yourself out, my beautiful one, and let go of your insecurity," the Master said, so softly that Amadeo wasn't sure if he was speaking aloud or into his mind. "Tonight things shall change, as you suspected, but the changes will be welcome to you. I promise."


	2. The Early Years - 1

_1497_

When Amadeo emerged from the bath, he found a fresh set of clothing waiting for him in a neat bundle, as the Master had said. He cocked his head, looking at the black linen and velvet, and his stomach turned with unease. Typically his Master dressed him in white, blue, or sometimes gold. Now, the somber garments seemed to look back at him as if to say, "I am different. Everything is different now."

_I've nothing to worry for,_ the boy chastised himself. _The master said so._

Shaking his head to clear it, he unfolded the garments and dressed himself. Really, they were fine clothes, clearly tailored with his proportions and looks in mind. He gave a small shiver as he pulled the soft fabric up, still rather sensitive from their earlier activities. When he was done, Amadeo gave a small turn in the looking glass- examining how his body was flattered and slimmed by the dark contrast. _If I'm an angel, paint me with black wings._ Yes, the black suited him. He tossed his damp curls and looked at himself, trying to see what the Master saw when he looked at him.

He whirled around at the sound of soft laughter, feeling a flush of shame at being caught admiring himself. The Master stood in the open doorway, and appeared to have been there for a short while, giving Amadeo a warm smile. "Bashfulness does not suit you, beautiful one," he chastised lightly. "You are worth all the admiration bestowed upon you, and more."

"How much more is there to be had?" he replied coyly, regrouping quickly, and was rewarded with the rich sound of the Master's laughter once more. Shaking his head at him lightly, the blonde half- turned and left the doorway, clearly expecting the boy to follow. Amadeo did so gamely, feeling his anxiety finally begin to fade. The Master was in such high spirits, it was difficult to worry. After all, the boy had quite giddily wormed his way into the center of the powerful, mysterious man's world, and he was content as a cat in a sunbeam there. Why would he ever worry or be nervous?

"It's only natural to you, as a mortal," the Master replied to his thoughts, turning into the corridor and continuing, "Fear is instinctual in the face of change. What is admirable is your ability to work through and past it. That quality will serve you well now."

Amadeo quickened his steps to catch up and fall into stride next to the Master, questions bubbling up and out of him as soon as they formed. "Why is that? Won't you tell me what is changing?" To which the Master chuckled at his eagerness but did not reply, keeping the enigma to himself for the moment. The surge of excitement at being referred to as 'mortal' passed through Amadeo, as well, left unspoken. 'Mortal', as opposed to 'immortal'.

Of course it was an open secret that the Master was something _other_. Even without recieving the Blood kisses from him, the apprentices all spoke of their suspicions in hushed tones out of earshot. He was a wizard, perhaps. Or, to some more fervent admirers, an angel clothed in the flesh of man. It was a popular but guilty subject of conversation, with no one willing to besmirch the name of the man who clothed and fed them all.

Amadeo was the only one with the extra, tantalizing morsel of information; the Blood kisses. They made colors sing and sounds bell-like in their complexity, enhancing everything for feverish periods and making Amadeo sigh and moan with the pleasure of it all. Of course, he kept the knowledge to himself without even needing to be told; and the knowledge that the Master's Blood could heal a cut or scrape instantly, when applied in a reddened kiss or the curl of his tongue.

Only for him....

The cogs in Amadeo's head spun as they entered a room he had never been into before, and he nearly forgot his train of thought when his gaze fell on the interior of the space. It was stunning.

Every inch of wall and ceiling had been painted, with painstaking detail, into the image of Heaven. Cherubs with gold horns danced gaily amongst the clouds, playing for serene angels. Each cloud was edged in silver that gleamed in the candlelight as if it had been applied with actual silver; every lock of hair was spun gold and fire. A polished gold chandelier of candles hung above, casting warm light into the entire space and reflecting off the marble floor. Was this some private studio of the Master's? The boy gaped and turned to look around and around as he was led into the center of the room. 

"What were you going to ask, my child?" the Master asked, encouraging Amadeo out of his awe. The auburn-haired boy sorted his thoughts out for a moment, trying to figure out how to articulate his question without being too untoward. Finally, looking into those deep blue eyes filled with love, he swallowed thickly and spoke.

"Master... Am I to become as you are?"

The Master looked down at him serenely. "What do you think I am?"

Amadeo's eyes fell, gaze following the folds of red velvet to the floor. He, himself, had engaged in such speculation with his peers, feeling more naughty for doing so because he held precious pieces of the puzzle to himself. Now, it was as though he'd been caught gossiping. "I don't truly know... a God...?" he peeped out, feeling silly. He looked up in surprise as the Master chuckled.

"Oh, Amadeo. You flatter and strike closer to the truth than you know," the Master said after a moment, reaching out to pet the drying curls. Amadeo leaned into the touch, closing his eyes and sighing, soothed and intensely interested. The secret was about to be his--! 

"Long, long ago, I was referred to as a God by people who had no other notion of our nature than divinity." Now, he sobered, taking the boy's chin under his fingers and tipping his head up. Amadeo looked at him dutifully, feeling again that sense of _power_ radiating from the Master. "My name is Marius," he continued. All of the boys in the palazzo knew his name of course, but, out of respect, all referred to him as the Master. 

"I am a creature of the night," he said, and his voice was solemn and full of gravity now. "I live on the blood of the evildoer, and cannot tolerate the heat of the sun. I will live forever... and if you are willing, so shall you."

The silence radiated through the room, a living thing. Amadeo felt his heart beating so strongly he was sure the sound would echo off the painted walls. The Master waited patiently for him to absorb what had been said, not the faintest hint of expression on his marble features.

Then Amadeo had buried himself against the red velvet and silk, and wound his arms tightly about the Master. "Yes," he said, tipping his head up so as to be heard clearly. "Yes, please!"

He was so happy he felt like he might float if he let go. Alive forever, with the Master forever! Amadeo would swim across the sea for it. He would walk to the ends of the Earth, he would climb the highest mountain--

"Hold on, hold on now," the Master was smiling broadly as if in spite of his own words, clearly pleased but wanting to maintain the gravity of the situation. "Amadeo. We must talk this over in detail, first, and then you must think on it until tomorrow evening. If your answer is still yes, then it shall be so."

"My answer is yes," the boy nearly interrupted, rolling up onto the balls of his feet so that he could embrace the Master about the neck. When he obligingly tilted to allow it, Amadeo peppered his cool cheeks with kisses, everywhere he could reach. "It will be yes tomorrow, and it was yes before you even asked," he said, and then his lips were locked to the Master's almost desperately, tongue sliding along the plush lips to ask permission.

The Master drew back, however, gently kissing the boy again before looking at him with what was meant to be sternness, but was sabotaged by the fading mirth in his eyes. "Are you so ready to die?" he asked, and Amadeo's expression faltered sharply along with the mood.

"...Die?"

Grimly satisfied that his enthusiasm was curbed, the Master nodded and straightened, keeping his arms in a loose loop about his boy. "You shall die and rise again to become as I am, little one. You shall be dead in the mortal sense, with all that that entails. Your body will be as it is now for all time."

Amadeo blinked, swallowed, looking at the Master. Surely _he_ was not dead--! But even as he protested the idea, he realized it was true. The Master did not dine with his proteges. He never so much as lifted a wine glass to his pale mouth. None of the apprentices had ever seen him eat! And then this, 'I live on the blood of the evildoer'....

"Yes," the Master replied to his thought, looking so somber now it was all the worse compared to his earlier happiness. "I prey upon the blood of the living. I take only the murderer, the rapist, and the swindler, but I take them to their graves. I have done so for the last seven hundred years."

"Seven hundred..." Amadeo echoed in a murmur. The room seemed too bright now, the colors too vivid, and he felt almost sick. He'd never expected this when he had speculated with the others. He'd never imagined anything even close when he lay in their bed, waiting for sunset. Suddenly he wanted to go back to that state of ignorance, of not knowing the secret at the center of their lives. The Master let go of him now, gently disengaging the boy's hands from the folds of his clothing, and Amadeo stood there like he'd been struck.

"This is why you must think, and think hard," he said, and now the boy could hear a depth of feeling in his voice that he had not before. He sounded sad, and tired, and _ancient_. "You would be leaving behind the life that is laid out for you now."

"What life is that?" Amadeo replied, feeling the words leave his mouth like he was something mechanical.

"Sunlight, fresh wine, sweet bread," the Master supplied. "You would not go on to university, but stay instead with me. You would live forever, and you would see those around you grow and eventually die."

_Stay with him... Live forever..._

"Think, beautiful one. I shall be back tomorrow night."

Once the implication that he was leaving sunk in, Amadeo thrust his hands out, clinging to the red fabric of the Master's robes as if they were a lifeline. "But where will you go? Why?" he asked, almost frantic.

The Master hushed him, putting his large hands over the boy's. "I go to make arrangements for whichever way you choose," he said in a soothing, low voice. Amadeo looked up at him with desperation. "I must feed, as well, no matter what you decide."

Feed.

Amadeo let go with the gentle prising loose of his fingers, and then stood like a discarded doll again, only on his feet by chance. Then the Master knelt down, and his brown eyes were gazing not at the floor anymore but at the Master's face. His pale, impossibly smooth, beautiful face. He was smiling. Amadeo had thought he was an angel when he'd first laid eyes on him.

"I love you," he said, quite frankly, and this surprised Amadeo out of his shock somewhat. "No matter your decision, that shall never change. I will always care for you." He closed his eyes as the Master leaned in to kiss him lightly on the lips, feeling cool and soothing to the sudden heat that the boy felt rising in his face. Unbidden, it spilled from under his thick lashes and down his cheeks. _I love you_.

When he looked up again, he was alone in the room. He whipped his head this way and that, but not so much as a candle flickered. All around the faces of angels seemed to look back at him, asking, _What will you do, then?_

\- - -

The next evening, Amadeo sat on the edge of the Master's bed, his socked toes just brushing the floor, hands in his lap. Through the open window, he could see the sky turning from blue to orange, and then deepening into a vivid purple. He watched this all as if colors were food to him and the sunset was a feast. Soon it would be dark. Soon the Master would appear.

The day had gone by in a confusing haze. He'd overslept, finding that without the Master around, he had little will to stay awake and curled up, feeling thoroughly alone in the massive bed. The other boys in the palazzo could tell something was upsetting the auburn-haired boy as soon as he wandered into the main studio, and Amadeo had found himself quite abruptly being taken out on the town.

Of course, drinking and rough-housing with the others was a joy, but it was soured somewhat with what knowledge the boy now bore. No more sun...no more of this....

Whenever he started in on such thoughts, though, Riccardo was there, pouring wine into his glass or patting him on the back, talking him into playing cards with him (even though Amadeo knew full well he kept extra aces tucked into his tunic), and making sure that the smile returned Amadeo's face.

Finally he'd been left to his own devices, half-drunk still, humming a tune from the tavern, and without a shred of appetite for dinner. He wandered into the Master's room again and it looked strange, lit up by the nearly full light of day. The desk was still a mess. The bed had not been made. The potted plants that lived in the nooks and crevices of the room looked vivid and full of vitality.

Live forever. Stay with the Master.

His black clothes were somewhat rumpled from being slept in and then dragged out on the town. He straightened and smoothed them as best he could in the mirror, realizing that the Master had, perhaps, dressed him in funerary black on purpose. Amadeo looked pale and slight in them, but still somehow luscious. He gave the mirror a saucy smile. Would he look like this when he was dead?

Such thoughts were pointless, and yet they spun around in Amadeo's head until he grew quite sick of them. He laid down in the bed, tossed for a time, and then shucked his breeches down and masturbated out of frustration.

_Isn't it just exactly what you want? To stay with the Master forever and ever and never have to worry about university, or growing old..or dying?_ Yes, yes, and yes. Amadeo sighed in the tingling afterpleasure, boneless. _Then stop acting like a child. It's what you want._

Resolved, he got up and went to the desk, pulling out a quill and parchment and committing his thoughts to it. Putting what was on his mind onto paper was a tested method of clearing his head, and it worked the same now. When he was done, he read it over, looked out the window at the sky, and then cast the paper aside into the bin.

He was going to live forever.

He was going to be with the Master forever.

The realization made his chest ache with some mixture of anticipation and trepidation. Now that he'd doubly rid himself of pesky worries, it was exciting. He found himself pacing as the light finally started to change outside and the shadows grew longer, and when he tired of pacing, he sat on the bed to watch the stars come out.

The Master did not come. Amadeo frowned, looking around when he realized it had been dark outside for some time. _I cannot tolerate the heat of the sun._ The sun wasn't out any more. Didn't he always come home around this time?

After waiting a little longer, Amadeo realized his error and slipped off the bed and then out the door, quiet as a spirit. It was a simple matter to retrace their steps from the previous night, and soon he found himself outside a door that, before the previous night, he'd never paid any attention to before.

It opened as soon as he reached out for the door handle, sliding inwards on silent hinges. No one was on the other side. Amadeo's brows knit and he went inside, feeling rather as if he'd just stepped into a ring of toadstools or something silly like that.

Then again, the figure that was studying the vista of Heaven on the walls did seem fantastical enough to be a faerie tale. Amadeo walked up beside him and the Master seemed to silently acknowledge his presence without a word. He was looking at a brown-haired angel that, if Amadeo squinted, could have been a brother of his. Had this room been painted before or after he'd been brought to the palazzo?

"Well before," the Master murmured in reply, and finally he turned to regard his boy. Amadeo looked up at him, feeling once more the pounding of his heart, and realized he'd been anxiously waiting for this moment all day. "Are you certain, then?"

"Yes."

"Will you slay the evildoer for your sustenance every night?"

"You might have to instruct me, Master, but I will."

The Master laughed at this, and the room seemed to fill with air. Amadeo took a deep breath and was surprised to feel himself shudder. Nerves.

"Of course. I brought you out of Purgatory and into my world, and I have perhaps guided you towards this moment more than I should have. But the decision was always yours, and now you have made it." He looked Amadeo up and down, caressing him with his luminous eyes for a long while.

Just when the boy felt the urge to fidget under such loving scrutiny, the Master took a knee. "I will not lie and tell you that it won't hurt. Trust in me now, more than you ever have before. The pain will fade and you will be stronger than before, strong enough to live through the ages."

"I've trusted you with my whole life, Master," Amadeo replied. This felt almost like a proposal. "How much more can I give?"

The Master did not answer to that, only smiling. In the light, the two sharp little teeth glinted, no effort made to conceal them any more. He looked rather more handsome like that, with the natural expression of happiness rather than one trying to keep the secret. Amadeo slid into his arms as they were held out for him, and quickly found himself crushed in an embrace that he could not even worm his arms out of to return.

The smooth flesh of the Master's cheek brushed against his, and Amadeo realized that the skin was warm as he pressed his face against his neck, nuzzling. Warm and alive with vitality. Centimeters from his ear, a breath of, "Beautiful..."

And then the feeling of two sharp little teeth being driven into his flesh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise the a/b/o will come. and no, im not about to just rewrite The Vampire Armand X'D
> 
> btw, im selectively ignoring parts of The Vampire Armand because the whole 'jealous lord with a poisoned blade' part really just felt like Rice wanted to backpedal on Marius actively deciding to make a teenager into his immortal lover.


	3. The Early Years - 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> buckle up kids we're in for a ride

_1497_

Amadeo was dreaming. In the dream, he was walking behind the Master through a bright, sunlit meadow. Somewhere near to them, a stream bubbled happily, and birds sang from their perches above. The Master was clad in his typical red, and the contrast was startling against the lush natural surroundings. Amadeo marvelled at the way colors caught the light in the Master's hair, and sighed in happiness.

After a time, the Master came to a pause, and Amadeo caught up with him rather easily, pausing as well. "Master?" he said inquisitively, wondering why they didn't go on. Perhaps there was something of interest ahead? Peering around the red cape, Amadeo saw nothing of particular note; only more of the long grass, swaying in the light breeze, peppered with yellow and white flowers. In the distance, the woods grew thick and dense, and above them loomed the faint dark outline of mountains.

It was, in a word, idyllic.

"Why have we stopped?" Amadeo prompted after a moment, and then he looked up at the Master, who was looking ahead of them. Something in his expression made the boy falter, and before he could place it, the Master was looking at him in acknowledgement-- and his face was that of a wolf's.

Amadeo gasped, taking a step back automatically. The Master looked _feral_ , and his gaze was fixed on Amadeo with a predatory glint. Fangs peeked out from the red lips, and then the lips drew back into a snarl, and the boy saw that all of his teeth were sharp and deadly-looking, and he cried out. "Master--!"

\- - -

When he awoke, Amadeo was in the nest of blankets and pillows. He remembered the dream that had awoken him quite vividly, but oddly, his heart neither pounded nor did his breath come in startled gasps. In fact, he felt...serene.

The Master was sitting at a chair pulled up to the bedside, a book open in his hands though Amadeo somehow knew he had not been reading it. The gold leaf gilding on the edges of the pages caught the boy's eye irresistably. It shone in the candlelight so brilliantly!

Blinking, Amadeo looked around, memory of earlier events coming back as he marvelled at the Blood-tinted vision. Was he dead? Was this death? The questions passed in and out of his head like water. He knew he needed to focus on them, that they were utterly important, but the red curtain hanging from the four poster was so beautiful, he felt like crying.

"Amadeo," the Master said gently, and his voice was so _rich_ that Amadeo almost did cry at the sound. Never had the Blood left his senses heightened so! Tearing himself away from the sight of the curtains, he looked at the Master instead and was immediately transfixed.

Of course Marius was beautiful; that was beyond question. But now his skin seemed almost to shimmer, flexing and moving impossibly with his expressions like marble made pliant. There were flecks of green in the blue, blue eyes, and in his thick brows and thicker hair the light shone with rainbows. The thought of kissing the full, pale red lips crossed Amadeo's mind, though he felt no real urge to do so.

That broke his reverie, if only a little.

The Master was waiting patiently, as if he knew that everything around them was gorgeous beyond all imagining. How could he know this, and see it, and not be so in love as to never get anything accomplished? Amadeo forced himself to straighten up, and felt a small stab of trepidation as he looked not only at the individual features of his Master, but at his expression; which was solemn and could have been called sad, if such a peaceful countenance could be sad.

"Do you hurt anywhere, my child? Any lingering aches?"

Amadeo shook his head, watching the Master's mouth. He wanted to kiss him, but it was only a thought in his mind. There was no backing desire.

"Things have turned out differently than I had thought. Are you listening?" The boy looked him in the eyes, resolutely paying attention. His tongue found the new, sharp little points of his insisors a moment later. "There was one detail that I did not impart to you before your inception. The reason for this was perhaps superstitious on my part, but now it is doing you harm to not know. I had hoped that I would not influence events by telling you..."

Amadeo frowned. The Master never skirted around points like this, nor left a sentence hanging. He always spoke with purpose and now it seemed that the purpose was one he rather didn't want to get around to. Slipping out from under the covers, Amadeo gave a small, delighted shiver to find that he was naked and the sheets were a sumptuous, silky pleasure. A dim and awful memory of retching and curling up on the floor came to him, but he pushed it away just as easily as it had come.

"Master, what is it?" he said, sliding his legs over the side of the bed so that their knees nearly touched. He felt no bashfulness, but then, he hadn't been shy about nudity before, either. The Master looked almost uncomfortable now, which sounded alarm bells in the boy's mind. He had never looked even remotely uncomfortable in Amadeo's presence before.

"Child of mine, creatures such as you and I- vampires- were originally solitary creatures. In the legend told to me, living in darkness and solitude through the ages would eventually drive us to our true graves, and out of desire for companionship, the line diverged on two distinct paths that complement each other." He paused, letting Amadeo absorb the information, before continuing.

"One is Alpha, the dominant state, and the submissive is Omega. These two types cannot exist without the other, and so they form what is called a pair bond. The original line, Beta, still exists, though how many there are is unknown, since they are solitary as before."

Amadeo was frowning now. Alpha and Omega and Beta.... He was still getting used to his teeth. But this 'pair bond' caught his ear. "Are we a pair bond, Master?"

The Master's expression seemed to fold on itself then, quickly and only briefly, and then he was shaking his head with solemnity. "I had thought, based on your temperament and manner, that you would become an omega. I'm sorry. It seems I did not account enough for your fiery spirit."

Something...something breaking. Amadeo blinked rapidly, processing the feeling and trying to discern what the Master meant. It was as though the air had been cleaved. "I don't understand, Master, what's wrong? Is something wrong with me?" Perhaps the process of becoming like him, becoming a vampire, had gone wrong. Amadeo cast his mind back hurriedly, but there were only the dim, fuzzy images of vomiting and being carried somewhere and _pain_. Pain in his gut, pain in his head, pain in his groin and in his mouth and feeling as if...

As if he were dying.

"You are perfect," the Master reassured him, interrupting his thoughts. Amadeo looked at him helplessly. "You will be a beautiful alpha to someone, one day."

"I'm...an 'alpha'?"

Marius nodded, folding his arms loosely to hold the backs of his arms, as if he were folding in on himself again. "As am I."

\- - -

"Can it not be changed?" Amadeo asked, pacing. He would wear out the rug if he kept going like he was, but he didn't give a damn. He'd thrown on his breeches and begun pacing, asking question after repeated question, to no avail. "Can I not simply change to this omega that is apparently so important to be?"

Marius had not risen from where he was sitting, merely turned the chair so as to face where Amadeo was now walking back and forth and cursing when he accidentally bit his lip, talking in rushes and then railing against what he was told. "It is your very nature, Amadeo. It cannot be changed. This is the hubris of attempting to select someone to be your mate."

"I don't give a damn about hubris!" Amadeo balked, wheeling on the Master as he threw up his hands. The moment he looked at the calm blonde figure, he realized he had never raised his voice in such a manner directed at him. Ever.

The Master was watching him with that same solemn expression, and instead of making him feel sad or melancholy, it made Amadeo want to hit something in his frustration. His veins were singing with heat.

"You are disappointed that things did not go as intended," the Master said calmly, trying to soothe the boy with his voice, though the words only incited him further. "You are also hungry. You must feed soon."

"And if I don't? Will this change be undone?" It was the last thing he wanted and yet so was this horrible, new divider; the state of being alpha, whatever the hell that meant. The weight upon the Master's shoulders visibly grew.

"It can never be undone. You are a vampire now, and shall be until the end of time."

"And I shall be an alpha forever as well?" Amadeo looked at him as if he could find a different answer somewhere in his clothes or his damnable expression. When nothing came forth, he stalked purposely towards the other vampire and climbed into his lap rather ungracefully. "Damn it! Damn alpha and omega and whatever other letters there are!"

Before the Master could reply aside from putting his hands up, as if Amadeo were scalding to the touch, the boy surged forward and kissed him. He _wanted_ to kiss him, dammit!

He wanted nothing to do with it.

And neither did the Master, apparently, because no sooner than their mouths touched did he stand up, effectively forcing Amadeo out of his lap and onto his own feet again, where he crumpled to the ground shortly after. "It cannot be changed, Amadeo," he said firmly, and the use of his name in such a tone stung just as much as the physical rejection.

Amadeo sat there on the floor, feeling quite wretched, as the Master continued in a softer voice. "You must learn how to hunt tonight. Gather yourself, child of mine. What's happened has happened, and we must simply continue on, now." And then he was leaving, shutting the door behind him without so much as a backwards glance.

Silence. Amadeo took a deep, heaving breath, leaning forward on his arms for support. The floor clouded with red before his eyes, and then fat red droplets were falling onto the marble with a soft _plip_. Everything was red.

\- - -

When the Master returned, Amadeo had made himself an actual nest in the bed, buried under the pillows and blankets and breathing through a tiny crevice between it all. "Oh, Amadeo," the Master said, sounding tired and pitying, and the boy hated it.

The desk was upturned and lay on its' end to one side of the room, the papers and books that had been on top strewn every which way. A pot of ink had spilled across the marble in a black ooze, still dripping sluggishly from the broken bottle top. The glass had flown in all directions when it was thrown onto the ground.

"I understand your pain, beautiful child," the Master was saying placatingly, stepping over the pool of ink. "I understand it more than you could ever realize."

The plants in the corner had not been intentionally harmed, but one of them somehow suffered a crack across the ceramic pot that held it. It would surely slide in two in time, and would need repotting. The gorgeous velvet curtains around the four poster, however, could not be so easily replaced. Amadeo knew all of these things from under his fortress of blankets, and did not feel the faintest remorse for it, which was an utter lie.

"Time will lessen the pain," the Master continued, and he was at the bedside now. Amadeo could see the edge of his red cloak from his hidey hole. The chair that he had sat in while the boy finished dying and becoming a vampire had been thrown out the window, taking a bite out of the frame as it went through. He hadn't meant to hurl it so far. Only across the room. "You must eat. I am not trying to needle you, my child. It is imperative."

At that, the auburn-haired boy stirred in his nest, poking his head out. "Why?" he said flatly, looking at the Master for any visual sign that he was angry. His room was a shambles now, because of him. Marius looked solemn and sad, just as he had before. Unchanged.

"I would rather not my fledgling starve under my care," was the simple reply.

And simple as that, Amadeo dug himself out of his fortress in resignation and got up.

\- - -

Eating, or rather, drinking, did little to improve Amadeo's mood; though he did note that the uncomfortable heat through his veins lessened when it was done. The Master had taken him to the edge of the city, where the ruffians and cutthroats lurked, and Amadeo found that he did not feel the faintest fear as he glided silently behind his Master. Even if he were alone, he doubted he could feel fear. Power seemed to surge and ebb through him effortlessly, as demonstrated by the incident with the chair. He kept pace with the Master and was kept silent as the moon with ease.

He'd hardly needed to be guided, when the time came; the Master had gone before him, selecting a man who was wobbling in his drunkenness and split off from his drinking companions awhile before. "Know your prey," the Master imparted in a voice too low for mortal ears, as they'd stalked him down the docks. "With my blood, you should be able to see at least the hearts of men, if not their specific thoughts."

"He stole his friend's entire fortune in cards, and then killed him for the rings on his fingers," Amadeo replied, watching their quarry studiously. Marius looked at him in faint surprise, then smiled ruefully.

"Very good. Now, observe from here."

Amadeo had observed. The Master had made himself like the shadows on the shipping crates, slipping from one patch of darkness to the next, though the boy doubted that mortals could see properly in the dim moonlight anyway. When he was close enough, the Master had appeared out of the shadows, one hand a claw going over the mouth of the victim, the other clutching him close as he sank his fangs in. The sense of _power_ that had always radiated off of the master was gone, even as Amadeo watched him force a man broader and heavier than him into submission.

Marius was calm and unaffected as he supported the dead man's weight afterwards, using his nails to gouge a gaping hole across the throat, starting at the bite. Then, with all the compassion of an executioner, the body was dumped into the sea.

"Mask your kills to look like petty mortal violence, always," he instructed as they began to seek prey for Amadeo. "Do not be seen with your victim. Do not let them cry out."

It was all so simple.

When it finally happened, Amadeo had thought he was prepared for the reality of sucking the blood out of a man and drinking it down. In truth, that was only the raw physical component. The euphoria, the singing of the heartbeat in his ears, the rush of visions that was the life of this con artist-cum-rapist; these things Amadeo had not known to expect, and it was these things that nearly caused him to err on his very first kill.

Marius intervened, gently taking Amadeo's shoulder and attempting to draw him back while saying, "Careful, my child. You must not take the death--" But the rest of his warning had gone unheard, as Amadeo came out of the blood swoon and realized that he was being _touched_ while he fed. No sooner than it flashed across his mind, a lightning bolt of impulse, the boy whipped around with a snarl, fangs bared and bloody. Then he suddenly became aware of what he was doing and stopped, looking gobsmacked.

"Alpha aggression," the Master explained, utterly unruffled. Amadeo looked stricken. "I apologize. It was a necessary intervention, and an additional lesson. While you are feeding or otherwise vulnerable, interlopers are likely to end up on the recieving end of your fangs."

Armand wiped the blood from his mouth churlishly, listening and hating that he was now this thing that would snap like a dog if interrupted from eating. It must have shown on his face.

"With these small inconveniences comes greatly enhanced strength and endurance, even for a vampire," the Master continued. Amadeo knew that he hadn't lifted the thoughts from his mind and replied directly to them; for all that he could hear the din of mortal thoughts around them, he could not pick up even the faintest whiff of emotion from the Master. It was as if another, physical wall were separating them, in addition to this nonsensical barrier of alpha and alpha.

Even for all his annoyance, though, Amadeo was a star pupil to the letter. He disposed of the body as instructed, taking care in obscuring his bite with a few drops of his own blood (a useful trick, the Master explained, observing as he dutifully did as told), and then bashing the head in on a post until it was unrecognizable as a human skull. Excessive, but it helped soothe his mounting irritation.

And slowly, the idea that he was both immortal and this new state of being that was "alpha" began to settle into his mind.

\- - -

Sleep, Amadeo found, was yet annother biting reminder that he was _different_ now. Where before he had gone to bed in the early hours of the morning, curled against his Master's chest, now he was being lead to another area altogether, away from the palazzo and then the city itself. "Master, why aren't we going home?" he asked.

"Now that you are a vampire, you must take caution not to rest where you take up residence. Mortals could come upon you accidentally, or worse, those that would purposely destroy you. Your lair must always remain separate and secret." This was not too terrible; it made sense. Trust Marius to be ever cautious and practical. Amadeo had, admittedly, spent many hours during the day trying to find where the Master could possibly be, if he were still home.

When they descended down the earthen steps into the ground, the Master holding a torch up for Amadeo even though they could both see perfectly well, it stopped being alright.

There were two separate coffins, and they lay in two separate dug-out rooms.

Amadeo stared at the lone, smaller box in the smaller room. The walls looked and smelled freshly excavated, like wet earth and nature. In the first chamber, there was clearly enough space for both of their coffins, but instead he was instructed that he must take refuge in this coffin during the day, and for every day of the rest of his immortal life.

"I am not territorial anymore, but you will likely need to have an established lair for yourself," the Master explained coolly, appearing unruffled by all this. Amadeo was distraught, hidden behind his impassive face, as he looked at the little coffin. He hated it intensely.

If the Master could tell, he did not say as much. He busied himself with opening the coffin for Amadeo and demonstrating to him how the lock could only be engaged and disengaged from inside, then pointing out the handle with which he could easily pull the lid down and push it back up. There was even a thinner blanket from their own bed inside, should he find need of such comfort inside.

Amadeo watched and listened to all of this through a veil of red, wiping the blood tears on his black sleeve before they fell. When Marius was finished explaining the particulars of his new, solitary bed, he looked at his boy finally and gave a deep sigh.

"I'm sorry, Amadeo."

And those words seemed to break some invisible dam that had been holding in all the emotion, the anger and the hurt and despair, which throwing a tantrum had only quelled, not erased. Amadeo flew into the Master's arms with a choking sob, and the Master enveloped him in his arms, holding him close as he cried into the red clothes.

He had not fallen asleep alone since he'd been confined to the basement of the brothel, excepting the rare times that Marius had gone away on some secret errand. Those nights had been long and unbearably lonely. Now he was expected to lie down alone in a different room altogether, all because he was this unwanted creature, this alpha _thing_.

"I would reverse it if it meant having to watch you grow up instead, my Amadeo. I would undo this if it were the last thing I could do on Earth," he said, and even his voice sounded rough around the edges. Amadeo clung to him and gave a tiny muffled wail at the cruelty of it. He loved the Master still. His devotion was untouched; but the desire that had always underscored their relationship was completely erased. There was only an empty, painful space where once there had been passion.

Fate had deemed that they could not be together, for all of their immortal lives-- and the mortal in Amadeo mourned it grievously.


	4. The Early Years - 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it'll get happier i promise
> 
> (i didn't mean to write an angst fic but i chose the character with the saddest story to write about, oops)

_1497_

It was no better in the following nights.

For all his discomfort, Amadeo found that the moment he closed the lid of his coffin he fell right to sleep; and the next evening, he did not awake with any particular fright at being enclosed in a small new place. The lock slid smoothly under his palm, the lid almost weightless when he pushed it up.

He sat for a moment on the lip of the coffin, gathering his thoughts. He was hungry, and the gloomy mood of the previous night had faded into a grim sort of acceptance; nothing to do but continue on. He got up before he could contemplate further and work himself into a mood.

Marius was waiting for him in his own chamber. "Did you rest well?" the blonde asked, looking at Amadeo in the darkness. The boy nodded, thinking that he should feel frightened- or at least creeped out- by their being in a silent, earthen place full of coffins, but he found he was perfectly at ease. Put in some candleholders and it might have been a shadow of cozy.

When he intimated as much to the Master, he shook his head. "Remember the purpose of this place," he reminded. "It is a secret refuge. You must keep it as simple and as obscure as possible to minimize the chance of discovery." Amadeo thought there couldn't be much harm in merely having some light, but he kept it to himself. The melancholy had coalesced and hung over his head now, ready to drown him if he let it. He resolutely decided not to.

At least, not until the Master informed him that he could not return to the palazzo at all for a few nights.

"The others have been told only that you took ill and have been in my personal care ever since. They will be suspicious, of course, and if you return in good health so quickly they will be all the more so," he explained, leading Amadeo up the steps and out of the underground lair. 

"But Master, they'll be able to tell that I'm a vampire, won't they?" He protested. He hadn't had much of a chance to examine himself, but he knew that he looked greatly different from before. He had never had much coloration to his skin, but looking at his hands in the faint moonlight, he found that once had been there was gone. And then of course there was the matter of his fangs, which he was already adjusted to. He no longer bit his lips by accident when speaking.

"You must decieve them as I have done," The Master replied. "They cannot have the faintest idea of your true nature." Amadeo felt the cloud beginning to descend. Another thing that was different and awful. Riccardo was his best friend and they shared everything with one another- now he was meant to keep his entire state of existence to himself? 

They had risen out of the ground and Amadeo watched as the Master closed the trap door and pulled a fallen branch over top, effectively hiding the space. When he was done, the blonde looked at his boy with a sad fondness. "Don't look so glum, my child. It pains me to see you so."

Words from the night before came back to Amadeo- _I would undo this if it were the last thing I could do on Earth_. In space between them an irreversible barrier had gone up; the barrier of being of the same nature. The Master was in some faraway and untouchable place, standing right in front of him with those sad blue eyes. Amadeo hated the distance in equal proportion to how much he still loved his Master.

"Come, let us get you fed," Marius said, as if he could still hear the thoughts in the boy's head.

\- - -

For the next few evenings, the Master took Amadeo to different parts of the city, showing him his new hunting grounds. The brothels, the taverns, the docks, the gambling houses-- all of these places were ripe with evildoers. Amadeo found that the game of following and then later luring his prey to him lessened the ache in his chest. The feeling of his victims crumpling in his arms was nearly as sweet as the blood itself, and he took great pleasure in disguising the kill.

That first night, Amadeo also got a good look at himself. He found that the physical changes of becoming a vampire had greatly enhanced his looks, as he'd suspected. He had already known he was attractive, but now, with the pale skin contrasted by auburn curls and the new light in his eyes, he truly did look like an angel out of Caravaggio.

He spent a few moments looking at himself in the shop mirror, tilting his head this way and that, smiling and finding that if he did not consciously disguise them his fangs peeked out from his lips the way the Master's did. It made him look a little more mischevious, even a bit devilish, perhaps. He found he rather liked it.

The Master was watching from behind him, having stopped to let Amadeo admire himself. Their eyes met through the reflection, and then the boy looked away altogether, smile fading. There was such affection in the Master's eyes, and mingled with it was a sense of forlorn. It stung.

Perhaps even more intriguing than how he now looked was how _others_ appeared to him. A head of curly hair could make the boy stop in his tracks to watch how the light played off the gently bouncing locks. A woman sipping coffee one evening had Amadeo utterly transfixed when their eyes met. She had hair the color of the night sky and skin like sunset. With his enhanced vision, Amadeo swore he saw notes of blue and purple in her hair, her eyes sparkling like stars. She was gorgeous to mortals, surely, but to the boy she was a goddess, sipping fragrant coffee on a patio.

The Master jostled him with the light touch of his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Come now," he said with some amusement, and Amadeo forced himself to look away from the striking woman. It wasn't just her; everyone was beautiful to him now, even the ruffians that he took down. Their coarse beards, dirty clothes, unwashed hair all held some deeper understanding, some facet of mortality that Amadeo could sit and examine like a jewel for hours.

This was where Marius had to intervene the most. "You are so in love with the world, it may become your weakness if you let it," he chided. Amadeo frowned, looking up at him as they walked down a deserted avenue. They'd just left the docks, where the boy had taken a man nearly twice his size in both height and width to his grave. He'd smelled of cheap wine and cheaper perfume from the woman he'd forced down onto his bed sometime before, and when Amadeo took him, the smells had nearly overwhelmed his senses.

Now, their shadows played on the cobblestone between the shadows of buildings, enchanting. The Master elaborated, "If you let yourself be awestruck by everything around you, you may let down your guard. Do not forget that you are just as beguiling to mortals as they are to you."

"But Master, it's all so..."

"I know," the blonde replied, chuckling. "I do not mean to chastise you. After all, I was once just as besotted by the sight of a pretty woman as you are now. Come, let us go somewhere where you can gape to your heart's content."

Amadeo frowned in confusion, watching with intense interest how the wind made the shadows of their capes flutter like the rustling of wings, only proving the Master's point further when he tripped on a bit of uneven paving. Of course he caught himself with the grace of a cat, but it did not go unnoticed, and the Master tutted lightly and with affection, putting an arm around the boy's shoulders. It felt like nothing had changed between them at all.

They stayed like that as they entered the church until Amadeo broke off to walk ahead, vision locked on a depiction of the Virgin Mary. The gold gilding on the canvas looked _alive_ , catching the light of dozens of candles. Her face was serene as always, but now, she looked sad to Amadeo. So sad he wanted to cry.

Marius followed slowly behind, pausing a respectful distance away to watch his boy flit from paintings to statues to stained glass windows, all indescribably gorgeous to him, all inciting such depth of feeling that it was overwhelming. Had art ever held so much meaning before...?

The statues looked as if they might start moving, just as he and the Master moved. On closer inspection Amadeo realized he could see the chiselwork and sanding on even the most perfectly made sculpture. This was not the fault of the artist, of course; rather it was his vampire eyes and his background in art that made him able to see the angle at which the artist had chipped at the marble to create the delicate folds of cloth and the smooth curve of skin.

He found that, undisturbed, he could look on these things with such focus that the rest of the world around faded into obscurity, something that previously Amadeo only experienced when he was particularly engrossed in a book. Even the movement of other mortals in the building did not make him stir from studying the faces in The Last Supper. 

Eventually, Amadeo broke from his reverie somewhat and turned to look for the Master, having tuned out even him. The Master was only a few steps away, and Amadeo blinked, looking at him with the same reverence as the works of art around them. In the soft candlelight, Marius was the most beautiful creation in the church. His skin held a soft pearlescence that Amadeo's lacked, the eyes larger and more deeply set. His hair glistened like molten gold, as if a true angel had appeared in the church, perfect in all ways save the evil little fangs that lurked behind the softly frowning lips.

Amadeo found that he truly was on the verge of tears looking at him. Marius looked back at him with equal fondness and sorrow, like a mirror.

For all the love he held for his Master, it was as still and unmoving as a painting. Something to look upon and appreciate, but unable to engage with. Eventually Amadeo had to look away, remembering that there were still mortals about and his tears were not clear, but bloody, and that they would have to leave if he did not gather himself. He did not want to leave. The art was not such a painful reflection of his heart.

They stayed at the church until almost dawn.

\- - -

The Master only watched Amadeo feed after that first night, when he had showed his fledgling how. When asked, he explained that he was so old now that he only needed to drink once in a month or so. Amadeo wondered at that, ruddy-cheeked and wiping at his mouth, lips still red from the kill. He felt nearly ravenous when he woke up. The wisdom of giving him his own space, despite the fact that he still loathed it and felt terribly alone, was sound. Amadeo knew that he would not tolerate having someone else near to him when he rose.

In seven hundred years, would he only need to take victims once a month?

"It is different for everyone," the Master explained, leading the way away from the gambling house. Amadeo had found that, with the ability to see into the minds of men, he could easily win game after game of cards until his chosen prey grew irritable and accused him of cheating. It was laughably easy to goad him into a physical confrontation, and Amadeo did laugh, stoking his fury until they were outside and the man had every intent of killing him.

Well, he was facedown in the alley now. There was no physical harm visible- he'd clearly died of excess drink.

He'd had a Bible in his purse, surprisingly. Amadeo hadn't figured his victim could read, but then, that was a bit presumptive of him, he supposed. He studied the words as they walked and talked, finding he could devour the text with twice the speed he could have as a human, fully focused on reading.

"With my blood, you have the strength of ten men or so, and the ability to read minds already. This is because of my age and that you are my first sire." The old familiar ache in Amadeo's heart briefly flared into a horrible pang. His first...? "For others, they may remain just as they were as men. The strength and preternatural abilities would come to them only with time, or with an infusion of more powerful blood. But for all of us, the gifts increase as the ages pass, and the need for blood diminishes."

Amadeo closed and pocketed the little Bible, intrigued. "Then, could there be vampires that do not need blood at all?"

They were heading into the nicer part of the city now, though nowhere near where the apprentices often went to drink and be merry. Amadeo was saddened further thinking of them; he longed for just a glimpse of his friends, with his new eyes. Would he weep at the very sight of them?

Marius looked deeply contemplative. "Perhaps. But perhaps no vampire has lived so long as to find out. Many do not possess the stamina for eternity, Amadeo. It is only with a love of life, and perhaps a mate, that we can survive."

The stamina for eternity. A mate to share it with. The auburn-haired boy's steps slowed, biting his lip with his blunt human teeth. The Master had made him into a vampire to be his mate for eternity, but now, they were both alone together.

\- - -

Nearly a week after he had been turned, Marius determined that Amadeo could return to the palazzo. He'd left the boy alone to hunt while he went home to make the necessary preparations, and in his boredom and annoyance, the boy took two separate victims and gorged himself. When the Master returned, he found his charge sitting slumped against the side of a dilapidated building, with his second meal lying on the ground right where he'd fallen.

"All the better to look in good health," was all the Master had to say about it, and helped dispose of the body, since Amadeo discovered he felt rather sluggish and full after so much blood. "Now, you must take care to keep the secret of our nature," the Master instructed as they slowly headed back from the docks. "Conceal your fangs when you smile and speak. Do not move faster than a mortal, nor do anything that you as a mortal could not have done."

"I can't climb the walls with my bare hands?" Amadeo quipped, excited to be going home at last. Marius seemed determined to tamp down on his good mood with all his instruction.

"Absolutely not. And you must give no indication that anything is different to you, even when asked. You were deathly ill, and now you are better, and that is all. Dodge questions about where you go in the day; tell Riccardo that you go with me to study painting."

It was on the tip of his tongue to point out that no one thought the Master left to paint; after all, the studios were all in the palazzo. No one knew what he did during the day (except Amadeo), though there were plenty of theories.

But how could he possibly keep up the guise of nothing being awry?

Quite easily, as it turned out.

When he entered the main studio, there was a brief moment of surprise- and then Amadeo found himself being enveloped in dozens of warm embraces, nearly losing his footing in the press of soft bodies and all the rich sensations of being with his brothers, amplified by vampiric senses. Everyone smelled so _warm_ and so _alive_ , completely unlike the vermin that he and his Master hunted. How could he have thought those hooligans beautiful when there were clean, supple arms enfolding him now, soft lips kissing his cheeks? How could Marius stand to be around such beautiful humans constantly? It was nearly overwhelming.

Riccardo was at the front of the charge, and he held Amadeo almost possessively against his chest, tucking his head against his chin and sliding a hand under the auburn curls as if he were comforting a younger sibling. He smelled of sandalwood and youth and familiar comfort. "You are like him now," the boy said knowingly and quietly, a question in a statement. Almond eyes looked down into deep brown inquisitively and Amadeo held his breath as he gave a tiny nod, imperceptible to anyone else. The Master was mere feet away watching.

Riccardo hugged him tighter, almost roughly, and then let go. "Don't smother him now," he said, voice gay and bright again as the others wrapped their arms around Amadeo, who was helpless to do much but be smothered. If Marius was displeased with his immediately going against his advice, he did not show it. In fact, when Amadeo glanced over, the Master was smiling affectionately.

Later, after he'd been thorougly embraced and asked dozens of questions- all of which he found quite easy to answer, to his surprise- the Master finally took him aside into their room. Amadeo was shocked to find it exactly the way it had been before he'd had his fit, and a bit bitter about it as well.

The desk was on its' feet and in its' corner, the papers and books on top in a disarray as always. The four poster was hung with red velvet. The plants had both been repotted. There was not a trace of discoloration where the ink had spilled. The only indication that it had happened at all was the small dent in the windowframe. Amadeo stared at it for a long while, the proof that he had, in fact, thrown a tantrum like a small child less than a week before.

This had been their private refuge together, and now, it was just a room. A room full of the memory of soft sighs and kisses and passion. At least if it had still been torn apart, it might not have made Amadeo so bitterly sad.

"Riccardo believes that you have been made into an angel, like me," the Master said coolly, sitting down at his desk and looking at his papers. If he was affected by the room at all, he didn't show it. Amadeo nodded after a moment, having overheard such thoughts himself and feeling rather flattered at the notion. He hovered awkwardly in front of the desk as the Master picked up a quill. "You must let him continue to believe so."

"Master, how do you do it?" Amadeo asked quite frankly. The Master looked up from wetting the quill, looking his boy up and down. The auburn-haired boy felt as self-conscious as a teenager. Well, he was still a teen, after all. Never had he been so uncomfortable in his own skin; it was as if the sensual atmosphere of the room were making him itch.

"Be around them?" Amadeo nodded. "Do you not prefer the company of your brothers to the cutthroats and cheats at the taverns?"

"Of course I do," he answered, shaking his head. "But they're so..."

"...Tempting? Sweet?" The blonde vampire seemed to consider when again the boy nodded. "Child of mine, this lesson is one you must learn with time. But make no mistake, it is vital. The humans you love and hold dear are at your mercy in the end. You must think of them as the fragile mortals that they are to you now. Treat them kindly."

Amadeo thought of Riccardo, who was always so protective over him, even being a year younger. He was fragile now, and breakable, and must be treated like glass. It made him feel both powerful and conflicted. "Can we not make them as we are?" Amadeo asked impulsively as the thought came to him. Marius looked up sharply at this, and set his quill down completely.

"Never," he said, and the finality in his voice was chilling, even though his tone was still gentle and tutorly. "You must never make them like us, Amadeo."

"But why--"

"Would you have the palazzo filled with bloodthirsty vampires?" The Master countered. "Would you condemn your friends to murdering every night of their lives? Take them out of the sun because you wanted them closer to you?" Amadeo was shaking his head as the Master spoke, but he continued nonetheless. "To where would I take this band of fledglings? What corner of the city would we exterminate first?"

"I understand," Amadeo said, nearly interrupting the Master. The blood tears were threatening to rise as he listened, painfully understanding the folly of his impulsive idea. Marius looked at him hard, and the moment seemed to stretch like molasses before his gaze softened.

"I am sorry, my child," he sighed, picking up his quill again though he did not dip it in the ink to continue writing. "I do not mean to be harsh, but you must _never_ think of such a thing lightly. The creation of another like us is something to be undertaken with great consideration, not only of your motivations and the logistics of rearing a fledgling, but also with mind to what they want. Riccardo, for example, would wilt in the shadows. He is meant for the warmth of the sun, not the night."

Amadeo realized the Master was right as he spoke. He could not imagine his dearest friend stalking a man through the dark and then murdering him with his own hands and teeth. Still, he ached with the secret knowledge, the secret power, the deception that now he must live out every night in order to be near to his precious mortal friends.

\- - - 

This, he found, did lessen with time.

It helped that, aside from some natural curiosity, the others treated him no differently from before. Riccardo especially seemed determined to continue on as if nothing had changed. Amadeo was glad for this, and resolutely tried not to listen in on the thoughts of his friends, which he realized was rather simple to do. It was a bit like ignoring the birdsong and crickets coming in from the windows.

When he did accidentally listen in, he found that Riccardo was intensely curious about the changes that his friend had undergone, and faintly worried about his well-being, which Amadeo assuaged without effort merely by still being his old self. He harbored no suspicions or superstitious ideas, fully convinced that his Master and now his friend were celestial creatures in the form of men.

It made him a little sad that he was thought of as different, but there was nothing that could be done. Amadeo sat with the others as they dined and drank and talked, and he talked with them, but the space in front of him at the table was empty, and no one tried to fill it. He ate before he went to the palazzo, fastidiously making sure that he was clean and well-kept when he went home.

He was bitterly annoyed when a victim got liquor on his clothes one night, tearing into his shoulder with his teeth all the more viciously in response. It was absolutely theatric slipping into the palazzo later without being detected, listening to the minds of the mortals within and moving past them into the bathroom in order to wash up and change clothes.

When it came time to paint, Amadeo found that he had to expend effort to keep his preternatural abilities to himself. The Master could work himself into an outright fury with his brushes and paint, and everyone would watch in awe, their own brushes held up to the canvases forgotten. Amadeo had to physically stop himself from painting as fast as he realized he could the moment he picked up a brush, and his strokes felt slow and sluggish to him, and his painting suffered for it.

While he was frowning at his canvas with its' wobbly lines, one of the younger proteges came over. Cristofolo was his name, and he had been at the palazzo for a little over a year, having arrived just a year after Amadeo. He watched for a few minutes, and Amadeo dipped his brush in the colors and tried again, aware that he was being observed.

"Why don't you paint normally?" the boy asked, or perhaps suggested. Amadeo looked at him, blinking. Cristofolo still had the high, soft voice of a child, though he was starting to shoot up like a vine, and his eyes were kind. Amadeo looked back at his canvas and at the ugly brushwork, biting his lip with his blunt human teeth for a few minutes. Then, loading more paint onto the bristles, he went at it again without bothering to move slowly.

By the time he was done, several more of the apprentices had joined Cris and were watching Amadeo with mixtures of surprise, amusement, and pride. He felt bashful for only a moment looking at his audience, and then, looking at his own handiwork, Amadeo was pleased with the attention being paid to him. He sat back to examine what he had created in the space of less than an hour, satisfied and only a little sad. It was a portrait of the Master, and though he had not endeavored to be lifelike, the eyes had a twinkle in them, and the mouth looked just about to turn up in a smile.

It was Marius as he had seen him when he was still a boy.

"Wow, Amadeo, you're really good!" one of them exclaimed, and it broke Amadeo from his thoughts. He smiled indulgently and said his thanks, then looked over and noticed Riccardo was among the few that had come over to watch. He had the most affectionate smile on his face, and it was directed at him rather than his work.

"Another master painter," he said once Amadeo looked at him, and Amadeo felt his heart swell with an emotion that he could not place as either joy or grief.


	5. The Early Years - 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was going to be broken into two chapters to keep the chapter lengths relatively uniform but then we thought what the heck, give them the smut already
> 
> [12/12 edit: fixed the formatting issues!]

_1498_

Several weeks passed in this manner. The bitter sadness Amadeo felt over having become the wrong sort of vampire- this territorial, occassionally animal-like 'alpha'- could easily put him into a foul mood for hours if he ruminated on it; but if he didn't let himself dwell, the sorrow merely hung back in the wings like a miserable shadow. After all, the world had already held his interest when he was a boy. As a vampire, he was completely in love with the night and all the delights his new state of existence had to offer.

For example, when the Master finally determined that he could fetch his dinner himself, Amadeo spent a week learning the rooftops of the slums and darting across them with fantastic leaps and rolling laughter. He once startled a man so badly by jumping down in front of him that the poor bastard had a heart attack, effectively removing himself from the menu. Funny, but a bit annoying too, since this meant the boy had to find another victim.

He could scale the walls with his bare hands, as he'd joked, and sometimes hardly even needed to; a running start and a good jump, and Amadeo could catch the lip of a building up to two stories high, swinging or hauling himself the rest of the way up without having to so much as catch his breath.  
It was exhilarating.

Some nights the vampire spent so long gallavanting about that when he arrived at the palazzo, the boys had gone to bed already. It made him a little sad, but he would shrug, still buzzing with energy. After all, there was always the next evening to spend with his brothers.

Marius was always up no matter the hour, of course, and had gone back to his usual business. He typically rose a little earlier than his boy, and Amadeo would walk into his chamber only to find the big coffin empty. It made him ache a bit, but when the cool night air hit his face, he could easily brush the feeling off. The Master was often writing in his study (which Amadeo now avoided unless they had to talk privately), painting in the studios, or attending to the miscellaneous business of his house and mortal affairs. It was like nothing had changed. When Amadeo came in, the Master would look at him with a wry sort of knowing expression, and remind him of the rules: don't be seen, disguise the kill, et cetera, et cetera.

One evening, while he was scampering around and idly wondering which was the tallest building in the whole city, a boy caught Amadeo's eye.

He was not yet in one of the places to which the Master had instructed he go to find their prey, having found the kill was all the sweeter if he put it off for a little while after he rose, letting the hunger coalesce and sing through his veins until it carried him to his prey. Flattening himself on his belly to peer over the side of a flat-roofed structure, the vampire watched, rapt, as a brunette youth stealthily crept out a window, of all things, and into the alleyway.

Inside, a girl leaned out to kiss him once he righted himself. A rather passionate kiss, at that.

Intrigued, Amadeo crept along the roof on his elbows to follow the boy down the alley and towards the street. It was clear what had been going on between the two; after all, the girl had been holding her nightgown shut, and they were both in a hurry to get him out of the room unseen. An affair, or an unwelcome relationship altogether? Difficult to say. What wasn't difficult to see was that the boy was absolutely gorgeous. Even from here, the auburn-haired vampire could _smell_ the heady personal scent wafting off him. It was warm and spicy and secret, and utterly intoxicating. He _wanted_ him.

 _But the Master's orders..._ Amadeo thought, frowning. This was clearly no evildoer. He was a shoemaker's apprentice, he saw from his mind, and studious, though perhaps not the best with his hands. The worst he'd done in his whole life was sneak around with that girl. Amadeo could not have him.

Even as he told himself this very firmly, the vampire was rising up onto his feet to follow the boy down the street, silently hopping onto the next rooftop over and keeping pace. The boy was hurrying back to the room he had been given in the shoemaker's home-cum-storefront, hoping that the older man was still passed out asleep. His ponytail was messy and the ribbon only halfway tied, brown hair spilling out as the bow slowly slipped down the soft tresses. _He is an innocent._

When the ribbon finally fell free, Amadeo caught the blue strip of cloth in one hand easily. He'd hopped down onto the street without realizing he even meant to. Alarm bells sounded in his mind, though they only made the vampire's heart pound and adrenaline surge delightfully through his fingers and toes. _The gambling house is just ahead, drop the ribbon and go. You can't have him._

Before he could act on his own self-admonishment, the boy had realized his hair was completely disheveled and turned around, hastily scanning for his ribbon. It would be all the worse if he were discovered sneaking in looking a mess, after all. His eyes landed on Amadeo, and all the alarms and warnings suddenly stilled.

"You dropped this," he said and it was as if he were listening to someone else speak, someone whose tongue did not feel three times too big for his mouth. Intoxicating, those clever brown eyes, close to. No one around, no witnesses, but they were in the middle of a somewhat busy area. Past midnight, unlikely that anyone would pass this way... _Stop this._

The brunette boy smiled warmly, taking the ribbon from the outstretched hand. "Thanks," he got out, and no sooner than that, Amadeo was advancing on him. The boy frowned in confusion and backed up a few paces before realizing he was likely about to be mugged; Amadeo had his hand pinned to the wall before he could even begin to reach for his dagger. "Basta--!!"

But the brunette didn't get to finish cursing his attacker before the vampire bit into his shoulder, and his voice broke off into a pained cry. Amadeo growled over the wound, sucking hard, spurred on by the sounds of pain. His leg had landed between the boy's, and when he shifted his weight to stop the helpless scrabbling of his off hand, he ground his thigh up. The sound it produced from his victim made heat pulse in Amadeo's belly, radiating up the back of his throat and into his fingers as they dug into soft flesh.

He drank through the death, feeling the shock of it enter him like a punch to the gut. Still the heat burned, liquid fire in his core, grinding his leg against the boy even after he had ceased his struggling. Only when Amadeo finally let go, did he realize what he'd done. He staggered back in shock, blood running down the side of his mouth.

Murdering an innocent out of...lust? Hunger? His thoughts spun round rapidly as the auburn-haired boy scooped up his victim and made a smooth leap onto the roof, hastily trying to figure out what to do with him. _What was_ that _?_

Later, after he'd sorted his mess out (putting the corpse into a stinking alley near to one of the gambling houses, cutting his purse from his belt roughly, and leaving his own dagger stabbed into him for good measure), Amadeo sat on a rooftop with his arms folded, scowling fiercely at the little purse and the blue ribbon, which still held the scent of warmth and shoe leather.

Of course he felt guilty. Slay only the evildoer, that was what the Master had ordered. It wasn't only that he'd disobeyed, of course- Amadeo still had a sense of morality, after all. This was just...wanton. And the heat in his gut had not fully faded afterwards, even when he'd felt disgust at himself for what he'd done!

If he could kill an innocent boy for being unfortunately pretty, what was stopping him from murdering and looting and being just like the evildoers that he and Marius slew?

...What was stopping him from taking his brothers into his lethal embrace?

Amadeo did not return to the palazzo that night.

\- - -

After that, Amadeo stopped toying with his food and went directly to one or another seedy area to feed himself. The entire rest of the night after the incident, he'd felt warm and restless and like he wanted to find Marius and bother him until the Master loosed his breeches and fetched the crop. Of course, that was nothing more than a memory of lust, and it made Amadeo all the more frustrated. The Master had been his first partner, but not the only; now, having felt the way his body grew hot and taut holding that boy against him, he knew that it was far too dangerous to fool around with the other boys as they'd done in the past.

The heat had faded after that night, settling somewhere in his loins. When he didn't feel guilty and ashamed over what had happened, Amadeo found that he held his head a little higher, his shoulders square. He felt rather powerful, actually, more than just the sense of strength and speed that had come with his becoming a vampire. He felt on top of the world.

Even the other boys noticed, when he determined that he could not stay away from home forever. Cristofolo embraced him immediately, having stayed up specifically to give him a hug and tell him he had missed him. Amadeo ruffled his blonde hair affectionately, looking around the mostly deserted studio for Riccardo. He found the younger boy sitting in his usual corner by a window, canvas propped low so that he could paint from where he was plopped on the floor. He had a bottle of wine nearby, and one leg crooked up, the portrait of sensual grace.

Amadeo wanted to paint him like that. So he did. Setting up on the floor before the boy, he gave a broad smile when Riccardo looked over at him with warm, lazy almond eyes, and then set about painting without regards to pretense. When the boy moved to get up and watch, Amadeo waved him back down, brush crooked between his fingers. Riccardo quirked an eyebrow, but settled back down obediently, rearranging himself as he'd been before. He knew what Amadeo was up to, based on the way he grinned and posed a bit. The vampire snorted and rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

When he was finished, he let the boy get up and come over at last. Riccardo swayed a bit when he was upright- the bottle was empty now- but sauntered over with the all the grace to be expected of a lithe, supple teenage boy. "Damn," he swore inelegantly, leaning unconsciously on Amadeo to look. "I look good like that."

Amadeo answered with a laugh. "Only because I paint you to look good," he quipped, and laughed harder when Riccardo pushed him, catching himself on his side.

"Don't lie, I look just as good in real life," the dark-haired boy insisted, then yelped as quite suddenly Amadeo sat up and took his legs out from under him. He hit the floor on his butt and immediately lunged forward, barely mindful of the wet paint as they fell to wrestling right there.

Amadeo had his strength in check, of course. It was always on the back of his mind when he was home with his precious, fragile friends. But it was so easy to overpower Riccardo, and it felt so _good_ to do so. Laughter spilled from them both uproariously as Amadeo squirmed out from under the younger boy and bowled him over, landing on top of his side. Riccardo rolled onto his belly and up onto his elbows immediately, and Amadeo found himself pressed flush to his backside as he tried to haul himself up.

The air shifted.

Riccardo was still giggling as he started to sit up, exclaiming when Amadeo pushed him back down; and then the exclamation ended on a high note of question as the vampire pressed against his arse and his hardness nestled in the space there roughly. Amadeo had his teeth bared; Riccardo was facing away, luckily, pushing at the floor again and stopping dead when the boy _growled_.

Before he registered what was happening, Amadeo found himself being scooped up under the arms, and then his legs were dangling off the floor and a hand was over his mouth and he was pressed against a larger, firmer chest. "That's enough for tonight, Riccardo. Please get some rest," a firm, commanding voice was saying, but Amadeo's vision was red around the edges. He kicked back viciously, foot connecting with marble.

Marius had him in his arms, and before Riccardo could even right himself to see what was happening, they were gone into the hall and then shuttered in the Master's study. "Cease, child," he said firmly as Amadeo scrambled to right himself on the bed, where he'd been _tossed_ , and hissed reflexively. The Master was looking at him with his arms folded, unimpressed and waiting.

Amadeo wanted to rip him apart.

He blinked as the violent compulsion passed through him, then again, and frowned fiercely. What? Then he realized he was on his spread knees on the bed, hands crooked into claws as if ready to go through with his sudden impulse, and his cock was rock hard between his thighs.

"You're going into rut faster than I anticipated," Marius said calmly once Amadeo unhooked his nails from the sheets and sat on his haunches, looking confused. "How long have you felt the heat?"

"Heat?" Amadeo echoed in confusion. His face went red when Marius looked between his legs pointedly. "...About a week. What's rut?" The word sounded animalistic and rough. He didn't much like it.

Marius narrowed his gaze slightly, contemplating and ignoring his question. "Are you the one responsible for the death of that boy?"

Amadeo winced. "The...the shoemaker's apprentice?"

A long sigh. Then, "I'll not hold that against you. I should have been keeping a closer eye on you to begin with. It's my own fault."

Amadeo looked at the sheets, chargrined. "I couldn't stop myself. It was as if...as if something else had control over me, almost," he tried to explain, but it didn't sound right. He'd been in control of himself, all right, but it was as if he were drunk. His actions were his but they weren't. "Master, what is this 'rut'?"

Marius had taken to contemplation, chin crooked on his fingers. "It's an alpha mechanism to draw you towards a mate, or vice-versa," he explained distractedly. "It's natural, though I had thought your experience would mirror my own. I did not experience my first rut until several months after being turned. Perhaps it is your youth..."

Amadeo cared little about the whys and hows. "Well how do we stop it?" he prompted fussily. This was yet another inconvenience of his being _wrong_. Alpha aggression, alpha territorialism, alpha rut. It was a pain in the arse. Marius tapped his chin thoughtfully, not answering nor even looking up until Amadeo made a loud noise of annoyance.

"Patience, Amadeo. I will take care of you. It will take a few days, but we will get this sorted."

\- - -

Each night that passed, Amadeo’s “condition” got worse. He grew restless and irritable, time and again trying to drown himself in some activity, only to grow frustrated and stalk off in a huff when it did not work. He did not have the patience to paint nor read- the only relief for him was when he fed, the thrill of the hunt offsetting the itching, burning desire he now carried within him.

He had a thousand questions, and the Master never gave him a satisfying answer. 

“How long will this last?” Amadeo had demanded, pacing back and forth in Marius’ study.

“It is different for everyone, my child. You must be patient.” 

“Is there nothing I can do to relieve this?”

“You must only be patient, Amadeo- trust in me.” 

Amadeo did not _want_ to trust in him. He wanted this to be over. He took to sulking in the palazzo away from the other boys, who thankfully did not bother him. Riccardo had tried to give support and aid in whatever ailed his most most beloved friend. A huff and a dismissive wave had sent him off, and it soon spread to the rest of the boys that Amadeo was in quite a mood and not to be bothered. 

It was nearly a week before Marius came to him. It was late, not a single candle lit in any of the boy’s rooms, save for Amadeo’s. There he paced restlessly, brows knit together. Hunting had not helped, and he felt more frustrated than ever. He'd hardly used this room before, having spent his mortal nights sleeping with the Master, but now it was his private refuge.

“If you are here to reassure me and to tell me to once again be _patient_ , then I would like to kindly ask you to leave.” Even in his mood, Amadeo was a little ashamed of how petulant he sounded.

If the Master was offended, he did not show it. 

“No. Quite the opposite, as it stands.” 

Amadeo stopped his pacing, turning to look at the blonde in his doorway. Marius looked calm, neutral- hands folded behind him as if he were merely stopping by to wish his charge a good night. 

“I have a gift for you. Come- follow me.” 

With that he was gone, turning to walk down the halls towards his study. Amadeo considered him a moment, but it was not long before he left to follow along behind him. As he drew closer to the doors of Marius’ room, a strange, sweet smell begin to fill his nose, unlike anything he had ever encountered before. It was faint, but enticing. 

“Master,” He began, sniffing the air to try and determine where the scent was coming from, “What is that?”

“Patience. You will see.”

Amadeo was beginning to hate that word. 

The scent only grew stronger the closer he got to the study. It smelled warm, sweet, but almost a bit spicy, not unlike cinnamon. Strangest of all, it smelled familiar, and something within him began to respond. Something itched at him to move faster and he was hard pressed to stay at the Master’s pace. The trip felt impossibly long. 

When they arrived, Marius did not enter first. Instead he opened one of the doors and held it so that Amadeo could enter, stepping in behind him and closing it. The air felt thick and heavy, the scent _so_ strong, and he had just opened his mouth to ask his Master what was going on when a soft whimper from the bed caught his attention. 

Amadeo could not yet see, but he knew that there was someone underneath the blankets. He looked back to Marius in confusion- had he brought him a meal? When he reached out with his mind, all he could feel was such an intense _need_ that it nearly sent him reeling back. Whoever it was could not have been meant for drinking; Amadeo felt no evil from him and the Master was not so cruel as to lure an innocent just for sating his newfound, strange urges. 

Marius only gestured back to the bed, giving no answer, and when Amadeo looked back and found himself absolutely awestruck. 

The boy writhing in the coverlets did not look like any of the boys from the palazzo. Amadeo did not know him- but that sweet, heady smell that was wafting from _him_ and filling his senses made him ache to. His skin was a warm bronze, his hair a rich shade of black, and when the boy opened his eyes, Amadeo was startled to find they were blue.

This was no mortal- when the boy's lips parted to make way for the sweetest gasp he had ever heard, the faint glint of fangs could be seen. This boy was like him, like the Master. The notion alone was thrilling.

"Who...?" Amadeo breathed, finding himself at a loss for words. Something about the boy called to him. It was a sweet siren song, beckoning him closer, tempting, _begging_. He reached for something to hold onto and found the doorknob, feeling suddenly as if the room were far too warm. His mind swam with thoughts previously unknown to him, yelling at him to _take_ and _claim_ and _own_ , to join this boy and see what other sweet sounds he could wrench from him. _This_ was what he had been feeling all this time. 

"He is for you, child of mine. Do not fret- I sent for him, and his presence here is of his own volition. He wants to be here." 

The sound of the Master's voice barely penetrated Amadeo's mind. The boy was on his front, clutching onto the covers with slender hands. There wasn't a stitch of clothing on him. Distantly, Amadeo noticed colorful fabrics strewn about the room, and might have surmised they belonged to the boy if he were not so entranced by the perfect arch of his back. Between his thighs a clear, slick liquid could be seen, and Amadeo shivered to think that he was already prepared for him. 

__This must be an omega._ _

__

He hadn't even realized he was moving closer until he felt the Master's hand on his arm. 

"Some precautions must first be taken, beautiful one." 

And then he was pulled back towards his Master, a familiar arm encircling his waist, a hand tilting his chin upwards. 

"Open." 

It was a simple command, but Amadeo struggled to hear it, his ears filled with the sound of the boy's whimpers and helpless moans. When he glanced back, he could see him rocking his hips ever so slightly, one hand sliding between his legs to the place waiting for _him_ , only able to see thin, bronze fingers pushing inside before the Master commanded his attention once more. 

" _Open_ , Amadeo." 

This time, he heard him. 

Slowly he opened his mouth. The Master slipped something past his lips, against his newly-sharpened canines, and from the texture Amadeo could tell it was some form of wax. Something about it felt wrong, some new instinct deep inside him telling him so, screaming that he _needed_ his teeth, needed to bite. 

"Trust me. This is for your safety and his." 

It felt a bit uncomfortable, as if his teeth were just slightly too large for his mouth. Were there not a deliciously tempting boy waiting for him on the bed, his vanity might have allowed him to feel embarrassed. The Master was speaking again, but Amadeo could only catch a few words. Heat, knot, bond, alpha, omega...and his own name, of course. But his eyes could not leave the boy. He was no stranger to desire, but this was something different. 

A needy, frustrated moan sounded from the bed and Amadeo was disappointed to see the boy hide his face away in the blankets. The Master heard him too, allowing his gaze to shift from his fledgling to the boy and for the first time, Amadeo felt almost _hostile_ towards him. The feeling disappeared almost as soon as it came, for he held too much affection for his Master to remain feeling so, but he had still been aware of it. It had been as if he were threatened by his very presence- no, as if Amadeo’s claim on the _boy_ had been threatened. 

How was his Master so unaffected by him? 

Amadeo felt hazy, hot, flustered- almost as if the boy had laid some enchantment upon him that made Amadeo want him more than anything else in the world, and yet the Master remained as calm as always. He ran a gentle hand through his auburn hair, soothing the burning within him for a moment, before he removed his touch entirely. 

"Go to him, child of mine- I will return to you in a few hours.” 

As soon as the Master’s hands left him, Amadeo found himself on the bed. He could not remember how he got there. The heady scent was overwhelming now, filling his senses completely and making it difficult to think. At his presence, the boy removed his fingers from himself and arched _up_ , presenting himself to the immortal before him and allowing Amadeo to see his slick entrance. Again, he shivered- the boy was already prepared for him. 

When he fooled with the palazzo boys he took his time, teasing and playing until they either begged for him or grew frustrated enough to push him down and take him themselves. It was fun that way- there was as much artistry in physical pleasure as there was in any painting. The Master had taught him _that_ lesson himself. 

At a different time he would have loved to savor the boy before him, playing his body like an instrument as he found everywhere he was most sensitive, embracing him in his arms as they took turns pleasuring each other. 

Now, Amadeo did not have the willpower to do so. Already he could feel himself straining against his breeches, a dull ache making it feel as if he had been kept wanting for hours. The boy seemed to share his feeling, fingers and toes curling into the sheets, half-lidded blue eyes staring wantonly up at Amadeo through thick lashes. 

He did not even know the boy’s name, but it did not matter. Already, he had waited far too long. 

He grabbed the boy’s hips and pulled him to him, groaning as his ass met with Amadeo’s still-clothed and aching arousal. It did not help that as soon as they were flush the boy started _grinding_ , and it took a growl Amadeo had not known himself capable of making and a stern hand pushing him back down against the bed to get him to still. The boy whined, and Amadeo sympathized with him. Why was he still clothed? 

With his other hand Amadeo began to fumble with the fastenings of his breeches. When he could not get them undone fast enough, he grew frustrated and ripped the fabric from the buttons, freeing his length from its confines and hissing at the cool air against his skin. 

The boy gasped, and Amadeo had not even touched him. He struggled against the hold Amadeo had on him, trying to push towards his cock and take it into himself _on his own_ and never before had Amadeo seen someone want him so badly before. Even in his haze, he allowed it to stroke his pride. He could hear the boy brokenly panting out something in a language Amadeo did not understand, but it did not take a linguist to understand begging. 

They had both waited long enough. 

Amadeo pulled the boy to him again and rolled his hips forward, sliding his length in the cleft of the boy’s ass and coating it in his slick. The boy beneath him shivered and moaned, gripping onto the blankets until the brown skin of his knuckles turned almost white. He was so deliciously _wet_ and he smelled _so_ good, and Amadeo hadn’t realized he was pushing inside of him until he was surrounded by _heat_ and the boy was crying out. 

It felt so _right_ , so unlike the times he played with the other boys, and Amadeo quickly understood why Marius had capped his fangs when he found himself bent over the boy, buried within him as deep as he could go, mouthing at the nape of his neck. His wax-covered fangs scraped ineffectively across the boy’s skin and Amadeo growled again in frustration, settling for pressing his face against his throat and breathing in that intoxicating scent instead. 

He ground his hips against the boy even though he could not go any deeper. His heart pounded and suddenly he was all too aware of every move the boy made—the trembling of his limbs, his quickened pulse, the stolen blood rushing through his veins. Amadeo ached to touch him so he did, hands roaming across his chest and across his nipples, down to where the boy’s own neglected cock lay painfully hard between his legs. 

This brought Amadeo out of his haze for just a moment as he realized there was already a small, wet spot on the sheets beneath them- had the boy already finished? Just from Amadeo entering him? 

“You…okay?” He managed to ask, lips forming the words awkwardly around the wax in his mouth. 

“ _Yes_ ,” The boy panted out, one of his own hands going to wrap around Amadeo’s and guiding him to where he wanted to be touched. “Yes, yes, _yes_.” 

So they did share a common tongue. 

Amadeo did not dwell on this long, taking the boy’s consent and letting it fuel him as he slowly pulled out, before immediately rocking back in. One last experimental thrust- and then Amadeo could no longer hold himself back. He settled into a quick pace, rougher than he usually enjoyed in both giving and receiving, but neither of them had any complaints. 

If the boy had sounded sweet before, he sounded even sweeter now, pushing back against Amadeo’s thrusts and clutching onto his hand as if it were his only anchor in the world. He keened, moaned, cried- each sound only spurring Amadeo on as he took him. His other hand was pressed firmly against the mattress now, keeping himself supported so he would not rest his full weight on the boy below him. 

It was not long before Amadeo felt a strange sort of pressure at the base of his cock, a new feeling almost akin to the sensation of swelling. It grew more and more difficult to push back in each time he pulled out, until he could no longer draw back at all, stuck rutting against the boy and continuously hitting that spot inside of him that had him arching and _wailing_ beneath him. 

“Yes, yes, please--!” The boy cried again, and it made Amadeo moan to hear him. Again, he mouthed at the boy’s neck, an instinct deep within him _wishing_ he could bite, demanding that he take this boy for _forever_ and make him his. 

Were he in his normal state of mind, Amadeo would have been embarrassed at how quickly they finished together, but when the boy spasmed and tightened almost painfully around him, he could not hold back. They finished at nearly the same time, the boy spilling onto the mattress below them with a perfect cry and Amadeo releasing inside of him, pressing his covered teeth against his throat in a mock-bite simply to fill the urge. As a courtesy, he would have normally pulled out first, but he had little other choice now. 

They remained together for longer than Amadeo would have thought. When the boy slumped forward, spent and exhausted, Amadeo had to catch him with his own weary limbs to keep him from falling into the mess they had made together on the sheets. As such, they both wound up on their sides, still held together, Amadeo’s face buried against his neck and in his hair. 

They both panted, spent, and as the haze began to leave Amadeo’s mind he noticed that the intoxicating smell was fading, too. His senses were returning to him, and it seemed the same for the boy, who gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

“You…you Amadeo?” He heard the boy ask, surprised to hear his name on his lips. 

But then, it only made sense. If the Master was correct, and he always was, the boy had been fully informed as to what he would be doing and with who. It occurred to Amadeo again that he did not know the boy’s name, a small sense of shame building within him. If the boy knew him, the Master had likely told Amadeo about him in kind, but he had been too intoxicated by him to even listen. 

“Yes. And you…?” He asked, shifting to rest his chin on the boy’s shoulder so his voice could be heard. Still, his words felt and sounded a little awkward, but the boy did not seem to notice or care. 

A soft laugh came from him, before he softly nuzzled his cheek against Amadeo’s. 

“Theo.” 

_Theo_. It suited him. Now, with the fading haze, Amadeo could truly take him in. They were roughly the same size- with Theo perhaps being one or two inches taller- and from what Amadeo could see of his face, he looked a bit older than him, as well. Likely around nineteen or twenty when his maker turned him. 

“How long have you...?” Amadeo found himself asking. Theo was the only immortal he had met aside from his Master, not to mention his first _omega_ , and he had questions. 

“Only a few years, I think…Longer than you, I know.” 

Theo had a strange accent, one Amadeo had never heard before, but one he found himself liking. It was almost melodic, as if he were a few inflections away from singing all of his words. He would have surely fit right in at the palazzo as a mortal. 

“And _this_ ,” A slight roll of Amadeo’s hips where they were still joined emphasized what he meant. He’d quickly realized that, whatever that pressure had been, it wasn’t going away any time soon. They were literally locked together. “How often does _this_ occur?” 

Theo made a soft sound in the back of his throat at being jostled, body tensing a moment before relaxing again. “Every few months, for a day or so at a time, longer without someone like you to help. …Master says it’s to call a companion to me, to keep me from being alone.” 

Distantly, Amadeo wondered if Theo and his Maker were like he and his own Master. Close, but deemed by fate unable to get any closer. If this were not the case, why had Theo’s own Master left him unclaimed? He wanted to ask, but he was stopped by that sweet smell from earlier beginning to fill his senses again. 

“ _Mmh_ , that’ll be the heat again…” Theo murmured, pushing his hips back against Amadeo. It was his turn to be startled at being jostled, the movement drawing a small groan from him. He slid further in and then back out slightly now. “Funny, just as your knot was going away…have it in you to go again…?” 

There was a slight, teasing lilt in the question and in that moment Amadeo decided that he wanted to be friends with this boy. 

“Of course.” He murmured against his ear, making Theo shudder. 

Over the next few hours they fell into a routine. Each time Theo stirred, Amadeo would fuck the heat from him until they were both spent, taking the spaces between to either rest or talk before the cycle began again. By the time they finally tired themselves out, Amadeo had lost count of how many times their bodies had come together. Sleep took them both despite it still being nighttime outside of the window; they were simply too exhausted to keep their eyes open any longer. 

\- - - 

When the Master returned as promised, he found his charge and his guest still joined at the waist, wrapped in each other’s arms and sharing a blissful sleep. 

He looked at them for awhile, studying his fledgling’s relaxed features. The air smelled of sex and pheromones and the faint metallic taint of blood. After a long moment, the Master went to the window and reached out for the shutters to close and lock it, drawing the curtains securely across afterwards. Then, careful not to disturb either of the boys, he took the large comforter folded at the foot of the bed and unrolled it over them both from feet to heads, completely covering them. 

After watching to see that they did not stir and unearth themselves, Marius drew the thick curtains of the four-poster closed, as well, and pinned them in place so that not even a speck of candlelight could penetrate. 

It was not an ideal setup for the two vampires, but Marius knew better than to disturb them. Amadeo was distressed enough by his own aggression as it was; best not to bother him and incite his alpha instincts any more than necessary. Besides, they had a guest. 

So it was with great care that the Master shuttered them in darkness and locked the doors behind him as he left. At the end of the hall, he locked the great doors that opened onto it. This entire corridor of the palazzo would be closed off for the day, though he needed neither a plausible reason nor a physical barrier. Marius simply relayed the message as he walked back into the main studio. _Do not go down this hall. There is nothing necessary this way._

The silent command rippled outwards from the blonde silently, like light, travelling into the minds of the apprentices throughout the palazzo. None would hear it consciously, but all would be impelled by it. 

No one would disturb his charges. 

It was the same trick he used to ensure that none of the proteges tried to follow him when he left for the day; the reason no one truly questioned why he, and now Amadeo, were never seen eating or drinking. He had the ability to influence but not control the minds of those around him, all the more so if the mortals in question trusted in him- which they all did. He was their patron, after all, and he spoiled them quite happily. 

He'd taken some of his things from his room while preparing it for the boys, including his current diary. Marius settled himself at the long table at which the boys ate with a sigh, opening the leather tome to the next empty page; but then merely looking at it for a long time. The quill sat in the holder untouched. The image of his Amadeo curled up against another was fixed against his eyelids, there even with his eyes open on the blank paper. 

He had been meant for Marius, and now Marius had to send for others for Amadeo to take to bed. 

That day’s page in his journal remained blank. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't worry guys, i promise Armand/Original Male Character is not the endgame here, there just weren't any good candidates for an omega for Armand to diddle so we made one


	6. The Early Years - 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone was wondering where Bianca is in this-- I promise we haven't forgotten her!!! She's a friend of Marius' still but not Armand's, and since this is his perspective she hasn't shown up and probably won't. Sorry Bianca fans :c 
> 
> (also this is the chapter where stuff starts getting serious so buckle up)

_1498_

The next evening, Amadeo found that the heat in his loins had faded entirely. He woke up under the blanket still curled around Theo, who was similarly stirring, and took the liberty of pushing the covers down with his free arm. 

"Mm, that was just what I needed," the tan-skinned vampire murmured sleepily, twisting to give Amadeo a lazy smile. "Do you feel better?"

Amadeo considered it honestly, and answered honestly with a little nod a moment later. Truly, he did. The energy that had been skittering through his limbs restlessly was gone; and even now he felt none of the awkward shyness that one might expect in this situation. He was so nonplussed that it disturbed him a little. Everything felt _right_.

There was no immediate prickly sensation at having the boy with him when he woke, though he supposed they weren't in his 'lair', so to speak, either. Still, Amadeo was so at ease. He felt powerful and relaxed and...well, a little sticky, if he was honest.

Theo read his mind, perhaps literally, and giggled when Amadeo looked between them with a grimace. "Sorry," he said in his musical voice, and Amadeo had to laugh a little, himself. They disentangled slowly. Amadeo was surprised and mildly horrified to find that he had slept _inside_ Theo, sticking with congealed blood and body fluids when he disengaged. If a mortal happened upon this scene, they would think it was a bloody rape.

The bedsheets were absolutely ruined. Amadeo ran his fingertips along the linen, well away from the stains. They were not the Master's silk sheets, either. In fact, _all_ of the dressings the bed had been swapped for inexpensive red linen. Theo noticed him looking around. "Your Master knew it was going to be a mess," he said, sitting up and casting about for his clothes, before looking down at himself. The face he made was simultaneously funny and rather cute. "Have a bath?"

Amadeo roused himself immediately. Theo was a guest, after all. "Of course," he replied, crawling over the wreckage of their union to join the vampire. He could ruminate on all the preparations that had been taken on his behalf later. He checked that the doors the room were locked first, and then took Theo into the adjoining bath.

Inside, the taller boy gave a low whistle and immediately headed for the pool of water, already full and warmed. Amadeo blinked. He'd expected they would have to scrub off with cloths and cold basinwater, get dressed, and then get a proper bath drawn, but it had already been done for them.

Theo gave no indication of surprise at any of this, sinking into the water with a grateful sigh and looking the boy with half-lidded eyes. "Come on, it's lovely," he encouraged, holding out a hand. Amadeo took it after a moment and sank into the water, nearly purring at the delightful warmth, which made his companion laugh.

For a good while the two just soaked, relishing the hot water and the company. When finally Amadeo reached over to get a washcloth for each of them, Theo was half-asleep. He was perfectly at ease, it seemed.

"Theo...do you do this often?" Amadeo broached as they both took to the task of scrubbing themselves off. The water was rapidly clouding a rusty color now. Theo made a questioning noise, encouraging him to continue. "I mean, go to others to..."

"Fuck?" he finished innocently. Amadeo looked at him sharply, shocked, which caused the older boy to laugh. "What? It's true. I told you, the heat comes every few months. Sometimes, my Master brings me someone instead and I stay at home. This place is really nice, though. I wouldn't mind coming here more."

He flicked water at Amadeo playfully and the auburn-haired boy got a mischevious look in his eyes. Theo sat up gamely with a grin, gasping when quite suddenly Amadeo ducked under the water. Then he cried out in surprise a moment later when both his ankles were grabbed, flailing as he was dragged under. They took to wrestling in the bath, splashing and yelling and making a right mess.

When there was a knock at the door, both of them looked over like schoolboys caught being naughty. Amadeo was _soaked _, hair clinging to his brow, which he swept back quickly and called out, "Yes?" Theo was pursing his lips fiercely, trying not to giggle. The Master entered a moment later and both of them sobered considerably, well aware of the sopping mess they'd made of the bathroom.__

__Marius looked amused, for the most part. "I trust you both slept well," he said, looking around and then levelling his gaze on Amadeo. The auburn-haired boy nodded, suddenly feeling the awkwardness that had been absent when they woke up. He was keenly aware of the reality of the situation now, and his merriment started to fade._ _

__A small crease appeared in the Master's brow, the beginning of a frown. "Pardon my intrusion," he said politely, folding his hands behind his back. "The other apprentices have not been informed of your guest, Amadeo. It would be wise to keep it this way." In other words, quiet down._ _

__"Yes, Master," Amadeo replied, cowed. Marius held his gaze with his own evenly and it made him want to fidget, feeling like a boy who'd been caught disobeying- which was ridiculous of course. He'd wanted Amadeo and Theo to hit it off, hadn't he? He'd gone to so much trouble for them to come together. So why did it feel like he'd been found out in an affair?_ _

__"Take your time. Clothes have been prepared for you when you are ready to leave. I've my own business to attend to, so I will not be joining you for dinner." And with that, the Master bid them goodbye, and closed the door behind him. Amadeo squirmed, feeling abashed despite the reassurance. The entire time, the Master had looked only at him. He hadn't even acknowledged Theo._ _

__It dawned on the vampire a few minutes later that he probably was ignoring the other boy purposely. Something to do with alphas and their apparent territorialism, he reckoned. Amadeo looked at Theo, who was surreptitiously cleaning under his fingernails. He felt only a warm sort of affection for the boy, who was fast becoming a friend. No possessiveness or sense of ownership._ _

__Which reminded him. Amadeo felt inside his own mouth with his tongue then, looking for the wax caps that had stopped him from biting Theo, and found that they were gone. Dissolved? No...perhaps they'd simply slipped out of his mouth in his sleep. He'd have to check the sheets later to see._ _

__"Your Master and you were...together?" Theo asked tentatively, watching Amadeo now with tender blue eyes. Amadeo blinked, bringing himself back into the moment._ _

__"Is it that obvious?" he asked, feeling bitter. Theo did not deserve his moodiness, though. Amadeo frowned, gesturing for the boy to turn and holding up his washcloth. The bronze-skinned boy readily complied, settling down with his back to Amadeo, which he found made it easier to talk to him. "We were," he replied, dipping his cloth in the murky water and starting to rub the sweat and grime off his companion's shoulders. "I came out wrong, I guess."_ _

__"Nothing wrong with who you are," Theo replied. "Rotten luck, though. Did he make you to be his mate?" Amadeo went quiet. "Ahh, that's just awful. At least he's taking care of you anyway, right?"_ _

__"Right," the auburn-haired boy replied absently. _Nothing wrong with who you are_. This was who he was.... A thought came to the boy from the previous night and he perked up, changing the subject. "Who is your Master, Theo? Did he make you to be their mate, too?" Were they both in the same boat?_ _

__"Ahh, no," the older boy shook his head. "Happened by chance, I suppose. Found him while I was travelling, thought he was pretty, tried to climb into his bed for the night. You know how it goes." He waved his hand dismissively, and Amadeo nodded. He _did_ know how it went. "As it turns out, he meant to make a meal of me, but he says that after talking to me half the night, he thought it a waste to kill me. Then he offered me the 'immortal gift'. I think I surprised him with how quickly I said yes; he kept trying to dissuade me," he laughed. _ _

__Amadeo was surprised. Marius had given him time to think it over, even though he had already known his answer from the moment he asked him. Their situation was different, though. He knew Marius, he loved him- Theo had not known his maker. He wondered if perhaps Theo had been deceived, but he seemed far too comfortable for that to be the answer._ _

__"The thought of killing didn't frighten you?"_ _

__Theo laughed his bell-like laugh, shaking his head. "Of course not! It's a kill or be killed world out there. I'm pretty, and I have brown skin. That's left me in a more than few situations where my only way out was bloodshed."_ _

__Ah. That explained it, then. Amadeo ran the washcloth across the boy's back, wiping clean what was left of the mixture of blood and sweat on his skin. So, Theo had relished the thought of immortality- but that still did not explain why he was unclaimed. In his haze, Amadeo had wanted so _badly_ to take him for his own. That feeling was gone now, but if Theo and his Master were so close, why hadn't they bonded?_ _

__Again, Theo seemed to read his mind, letting out a small scoff. "He says I'm not ready. Wants me to get older, grow accustomed to my immortality and try all my options first, not just settle for him because he's the closest alpha. Give me a chance to fall in love, I suppose."_ _

__"And have you?"_ _

__"Not sure. I like it best with him, though."_ _

__When he was done washing Theo's back, the boy returned the favor, though the water was so murky now that they could not see their own legs under it. When they had both been scrubbed clean, Amadeo helped his companion out of the bath and they both rinsed off with the cool basinwater, shivering and giggling, and then quickly toweled off went into the bedroom to dress._ _

__The bed had been stripped while they bathed. Amadeo cocked his head. He hadn't heard anyone...meaning it had been the Master. The usual sheets and blankets sat in a tidy pile at the foot of the bare mattress, along with fresh clothes for Amadeo. The brightly colored items that had been scattered on the floor the night previous were also there, neatly folded._ _

__"Fancy," Theo remarked, plucking through the items to begin dressing. Amadeo did the same, fascinated by the strange, foreign articles the older boy put on second-nature. "So where can a devil get a bite around here?"_ _

__\- - -_ _

__Theo stayed half the night, going out to hunt with the auburn-haired boy before he was called home. Amadeo was pleased to find that the boy had also been taught to feast on only the lowlives and thugs; he kept his little transgression with the shoemaker's apprentice to himself, ashamed of his lapse in self-control even though he doubted Theo would judge him for it._ _

__"It's easier to cover up the kill this way," was the older vampire's logic for their choice of victims. He hunted much like Amadeo had found he enjoyed to, drawing a victim to him with his looks and charms and taking them almost willingly up until the moment of the bite. After they'd eaten, the older boy asked Amadeo to show him around. "Venice is such a big city and I've only really been here a couple of times. You live here, right?"_ _

__Amadeo found it hard to say no to his new friend. He was loathe to see him go. After all, he was his first immortal companion aside from the Master, and things were still awkward and painful between them. Amadeo had hardly realized it until now, but he was lonely. They spent the next hours exploring the city by rooftop, or when Theo wanted to, on the street, looking like two average teenage boys up to no good._ _

__Half after two in the morning, both of them heard a call. Amadeo frowned, picking up only a vague sound that he could neither place nor discern. It hadn't been audible, rather, he had heard it inside his head. Theo perked up immediately, tilting his head in listening, and then gave a little sigh._ _

__"That'll be my Master. Looks like I need to start heading home now," he said, sounding regretful._ _

__"Will he be cross with you?" Amadeo asked, feeling himself wilt. He had enjoyed the boy's company._ _

__"Nah, it's just a long ways to travel and I guess your Master only arranged for the one night. He's meeting me halfway, so I should head out now."_ _

__They walked together to the edge of town, arm in arm. Theo kissed him on the cheek. "It was really great," he said as their lips parted, winking. Amadeo felt his cheeks warm as he smirked in kind. "See you in a couple of months, maybe?" He nodded eagerly. Parting stung, but it was lessened by the idea of Theo coming back._ _

__And then the older vampire was gone into the night, leaving Amadeo alone with the memory of warmth and companionship._ _

__\- - -_ _

__The next few days were terribly lonely after that one wonderful evening with Theo and the next night together. Amadeo no longer itched and felt irritable, but there was a fresh hole in his chest next to the old, tender wound of forever being apart from his Master._ _

__Riccardo, Cristofolo, and all the others knew that Amadeo was glum. Bless his mortal friends, they all did everything in their power to cheer him up. He found his supplies already set up for him, nestled in the center of everyone else's easels, and Riccardo struck a pose for him once he sat down and took up his brushes, making him laugh at the silly face he made._ _

__That first night after watching Theo leave, Amadeo went back to the palazzo and to the Master's room. Marius was seated at his desk, as usual, and appeared to be balancing the household funds. He gave Amadeo a nod of greeting and gestured for him to wait a moment, which the boy did, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. The bed had been made up again in the usual red silks, no longer the nest in which he had lain with another, and the room was again the empty space in which he was no longer comfortable._ _

__Shortly, Marius finished what he was working on and set aside his work, putting all of his attention on his boy. "Are you not satisfied, my child?"_ _

__Amadeo shook his head, consciously unfurling his brows from a frown. "That isn't it, Master. I was just wondering..." he paused, turning to one side, examining the plants in their new pots. "Tell me about this pair bonding."_ _

__He heard the Master make a sound that was not quite a sigh, more just an exhalation of breath, and then the chair behind the desk was being pulled out and brought over. "Sit down, Amadeo. Don't be so skittish. It saddens me."_ _

__Amadeo sat down obediently, holding his elbows and frowning again. He hadn't thought of how his own awkwardness would affect Marius, and it made him all the more self-conscious. He tried to relax as the Master sat on the edge of the bed facing him a few feet away._ _

__"Now..." he started, appearing to wonder where to start. "When you were with Theo, you felt very badly the need to bite him, didn't you? That was the urge to form a pair bond." Amadeo nodded._ _

__"If you hadn't covered my fangs, I would have," he confirmed. Marius nodded knowingly._ _

__"Precisely why I did. A pair bond is unbreakable, and though I knew you would get on with the boy, I also knew neither of you would appreciate being bonded before you'd had a chance to get to know one another. This has happened before, of course, and typically it works out for both parties, but it's a great risk. As I said, bonding is for eternity and cannot be undone."_ _

__The sting of the subject was lessened now that there was a third party to discuss, now that Amadeo had felt that irresistable instinct to bond with Theo. "And once we've bonded...what is it like?"_ _

__The Master hummed. "I can't really tell you, as I have not bonded with anyone," he said quite frankly. _He made me to be his mate, and that didn't exactly work out did it?._ "I've been told there is a sense of _oneness_ when you bond with a mate. You'll be able to feel what they feel, much like the occassional visions and flashes of emotion when you take a victim, but permanent, and less vivid."_ _

__Amadeo considered this. It sounded...nice. Of course, it stung terribly to know that this was what Marius had expected to have with _him_. It hung in the air between them, unspoken but felt keenly by them both._ _

__"Was there something else...?" Marius prompted, reading Amadeo's expression instead of his thoughts. The auburn-haired boy shook his head, then hesitated._ _

__"The next time this...'rut' happens..."_ _

__"But of course. Theo and his master both have intimated to me already that he would be happy to come back, or have you over, when the time comes."_ _

__That soothed the boy; he liked Theo quite a lot. Enough to bond with him forever, though...? Maybe, maybe not. The older boy had indicated that he wanted to be with his own Master, after all. Amadeo found that this did not make him nearly as upset or sad as he expected; after all, Theo seemed quite happy, and that in turn made him happy for the boy. Perhaps that was a sign that they were really meant only to be friends. Time would tell._ _

__Amadeo would only get to muse on the idea for another two months._ _

__\- - -_ _

__The sturdy world of the palazzo- Amadeo's whole world- turned out to be as delicate and flammable as the wood it was made of. One evening the Master shook him awake in his coffin, ignoring the reflexive hissing of his ward, warning that they had been discovered._ _

__"Discovered by who?" Amadeo asked desperately, shoving his feet into their boots and running after Marius up the stairs. The Master didn't even bother with the trap door, nearly flying towards the city and leaving the boy exerting every ounce of his preternatural strength to keep up. He never answered his question._ _

__When they reached it, the palazzo was already on fire. There was screaming, mortal screaming, and horrible heat- the crashing of rafters as they fell to the floor aflame. The smell of burning wood and canvas made Amadeo gag, recoiling from the flames. Marius dove right in, shielding himself with his cape, and when he realized that the boys were probably still inside, Amadeo rushed after to help however he could._ _

__The moment they were inside the oven of the main studio, black-caped figures emerged from all sides, bearing flaming torches and hissing. Amadeo caught the glint of fangs under a hood- they were vampires! "Heathen," one of them accused, and the boy whipped his head around to the Master._ _

__"We've done you no ill," he said firmly, and suddenly, Amadeo felt the _power_ he had not so much as sensed since he'd become a vampire. It rolled off of the blonde, demanding _respect_ and obeisance. The entire circle seemed to ripple back from it._ _

__"Pagan!" Another one shouted then, and the whole group took up a horrible chorus, shouting 'outlier' and 'defiler of the Dark Ways' and a dozen other names of the same meaning, bolstering themselves with their hurled accusations. The torches were closing in-- and then, Amadeo's arm was roughly grabbed and they were _in the air_ , sailing over the heads of the caped vampires and towards the open corridor to the stairs._ _

__They ran._ _

__Amadeo cried out in horror when they went past another studio, this one full of recently finished works, all of which were aflame. "There's no time, leave them!" Marius shouted over his shoulder, and Amadeo followed him, thinking suddenly of the hands that had made all those beautiful works. Had the others escaped? He'd heard screaming, but now there was only the roar of fire and the awful heat._ _

__Their pursuers were hot on their heels; eventually, there were no more stairs to climb, no more halls to run down. They were on the roof of the burning palazzo. Marius turned to face them, throwing an arm out to give Amadeo cover. "Leave this place," he said firmly to the lot of them, who were still shouting unintelligable nonsense. They seemed to hover at an invisible line, the Master radiating his power outwards to repel them. Amadeo could not imagine his _strength_ in that moment._ _

__Finally, the tension bubbled to a head; one of the torch-wielding figures thrust his torch out at Marius with a curse, inciting the rest to follow, and in an instant, the Master had gone up in flames. Amadeo's mouth opened in a horrible scream, and then it was cut off by a strong arm connecting with his chest and sending him flying off the roof. It had been the Master's._ _

__He tumbled head over heels through the air, screaming, the whole palazzo a bonfire spinning in and out of sight-- and then the ground rushed up to meet his sprawling body, and everything went dark._ _


	7. The Long Sigh- 1

_1498_

Fire.

Screaming. Who was screaming?

Darkness.

_He_ was screaming.

Pain.

The Master was gone.

The boys were gone.

Silence.

Amadeo was in a cell. His captors, the caped vampires who'd set the palazzo and everything inside on fire, the vampires who must have looked for his broken body and taken him away, unconscious, had ignored all his pleas. When he'd realized some of his brothers were with him, he'd screamed for their release, and had been ignored.

When the fire came and his brothers were one by one forced to go into it, he screamed until his throat bled.

His eyes burned still with the memory of the bright flames, the faces contorted in agony. Cristofolo had been crying in silent terror, looking the blood tears streaking down his brother's face and unable to comprehend. When it had been his turn to go into the flames, Amadeo thrashed and screeched and choked and felt like his heart might actually burst from horror as he was tossed, up and up, and then crashing down, into the pyre.

Now it was dark. Now, he was in a damp little cell somewhere underground. There was nothing except the bars and rough walls and damp floor, not even a blanket. He curled up in a corner and sobbed.

They were all dead.

\- - -

Days passed. Amadeo lost the ability to keep track of time eventually; the only thing his mind became capable of was _hunger_. He licked at his own cheeks when he had the energy to cry, the precious blood tears too sweet to waste. He scrabbled at the floor in the dark like some repulsive thing, finally, licking the very floor where he'd laid those first few days.

His captors came ever so often, seemingly just peer in at him and sneer. Amadeo would make himself small in the corner, painfully cold and naked, his wrists thinner and thinner as he wrapped his arms around himself. He'd suffered burns on his face and arms when they'd pretended to throw him into the fire. His bones ached where they must have broken when he was pushed off the roof before; and without a drop of blood, nothing had ever fully healed.

When his pride broke, he went from huddling in the corner to begging feebly at the bars, hunched in pain and shame.

Laughter.

Amadeo started to slip in and out of consciousness. Sometimes, he was back at the palazzo and it was not burned to the ground and his brothers were there, smiling and embracing him. They all had fangs in these visions. They all went out into the sun together and drank blood red wine and gallavanted across the rooftops of Venice. Riccardo threw an arm around his shoulders and asked him why he'd waited so long to share the power with them.

He never saw the Master in these dreams.

When reality came back, it was the sound of water dripping somewhere or a door creaking somewhere far off. Amadeo screwed his eyes shut, crying without tears, cursing whatever had roused him back to consciousness. Reality was pain and hunger. At least when he fell to dreaming, these faded.

Until even those brief reprieves were taken.

One night (morning? day?), his captors came down the stairs and Amadeo lolled his head to one side, having so little strength now that even this was a great effort. Keys were being fiddled with. Was he going to be let out? Why? They would have to drag his bones ovr the threshold now, wouldn't they. Would they rattle across the rough floor?

All the slow, nonsensical thoughts that crept across the boy's mind crashed to a halt when the bars screeched open. The _smell_ had finally reached his feeble senses, and suddenly Amadeo was up like some awful marionette, jerked upright by the strings. His mouth was a horrible, cracked maw of bared teeth. Something collided with him in the darkness and the bars slammed shut roughly, reverberating across the walls, but Amadeo's world had gone red.

The blood--! There was blood in his mouth. He _moaned_ , the elixir of his existence coming in great gushes down his dry throat, filling him with warmth and vitality. The harder he drew, the harder the blood came. He barely noticed the struggling, clamping his arms around it all the tighter. There was a sharp pang that rocked through his body from his mouth, but he didn't register it, sucking and sucking until the blood started to slow. Amadeo made a desperate noise, clawing at the warmth, gnawing for more, more, _more--!_

He was crying and the tears were bloody and he was tearing into the flesh now, trying to suck and lap up every last morsel of blood until his fangs hit bone. He had to have more! 

When he finally gave up and forced himself to stop, his vision had cleared. He could see in the dark again. 

Riccardo lay in his arms. 

\- - - 

The others didn't come again for at least a week. 

Amadeo screamed with his renewed strength, little as it was. He shrieked himself hoarse and then took to hurling curses until his voice left altogether. The blood had come back out of him in a fount of sickness, making a sticky spot on the floor that smelled of bile and nectar. 

Riccardo lay against one wall, as far away as physically possible in his tiny prison. Amadeo refused to look in that direction. He curled in the corner like a naked wraith, clutching at his face, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw red stars. 

The dreams no longer came. The horrible, sweet blood-- his blood, _Riccardo's_ blood-- had lifted him out of the blissful half-conscious state of before, even though some of it was now congealing on the floor. Amadeo refused to go near it. His tears dried up again. Still there was only the darkness.

The stench soon became intolerable to the point of retching, but nothing came up, even when his throat tore from involuntary exertion. 

Finally, when Amadeo felt he was little more than a skeleton with a mop of hair in the corner, his captors came back. One of them made a comment about the smell. Another jangled the keys purposefully, seeing if it elicited a response. Amadeo didn't so much as twitch. He wanted to be away from the body. He wanted to be left alone to die. Could he die? 

When they grew bored of trying to get a response from him, they left. 

Amadeo curled into himself a little tighter and tried to conjure a dream, without success. 

\- - - 

Sometime later, he was removed from the cell. 

He didn't have an exact recollection of _how_ ; had he been dragged out after all? Probably. Or maybe he'd simply gotten up on his thin legs when told to come out. 

The smell certainly wasn't better wherever he'd been taken, or lead to. From the few candles scattered around, the dim illumination burning his eyes, he could see earthen and rough stone walls. Human bones, especially skulls, were set into the walls, staring at him with empty sockets. Everything was damp. Everything smelled like rot. 

Perhaps this was Hell. 

He contemplated this wearily from where he had somehow ended up, the thought slipping like molasses over soil, swaying on his knees in the rough chamber. There was a draft somewhere, but he'd been cold for so long that he didn't feel it much. Just as his mind started to fade out into contemplating a pebble on the floor, a door opened somewhere. 

When it did, a shockwave rocked through Amadeo, powerful enough to make him gasp and reel. 

He looked up slowly in the aftermath of the shock and saw a figure settling himself into the chair set into the wall before him. The power was coming from him; another wave crashed over Amadeo, compelling him to lower his gaze as the man's eyes fell on him. 

He felt small and weak and panicked. 

"So this is the prodigal son of the pagan Marius," a voice said. Amadeo flinched from the sound, even though the tone was soft and inviting, eyes looking this way and that on the floor. Was he meant to answer that? His mouth was full of glue. "I am Santino, little cherub." 

At this he did look up, and he saw that the man- Santino- was broad-shouldered and beautiful. His hair was dark, curling about his face to frame it perfectly, the shadow of a beard giving him an air of power and masculinity. Surrounded by bone walls and rot, he was like a dark angel. 

His face softened at this, and Amadeo knew he was reading his mind. Feebly, he tried to close up his thoughts, like a child trying to push shut a heavy door. "You flatter me," the vampire- for that was what he was, a vampire- said, smiling. Power rolled off of Santino still, as if it occurred naturally without his exerting any effort to do so. He was infinitely strong, holding the door of Amadeo's mind open, forcing him to look away again when their eyes met. "Tell me, did you form a bond while you were with the heathen Marius, in his glittering world of sin?" 

Amadeo's eyes widened as Theo came into his thoughts unbidden, and he forced the image away desperately. His mind was moving slowly, as if through honey. Santino hummed in thought, taking whatever information he pleased from the images. 

"I see," he said after a moment, sitting back on his throne of bones. The boy felt raped, forehead throbbing as he stared forward at the rough floor. "A doomed pair of alpha lovers. How touching." 

Amadeo jerked his head up and hissed. 

Santino backhanded him full across the face. The blow sent him sprawling across the floor like a doll. 

Laying there, stunned, with pain blooming across his features, Amadeo heard the vampire continue a moment later as if nothing had happened. "We Children of Satan respect such bonds, understand. We are not so base as to deny the nature given to us by our Creator in mercy for our burden." 

It was nonsensical to Amadeo, but he listened, perhaps compelled to by Santino's commanding strength. He lay on the floor, still stunned, too weak to do anything but relish in the sensation of loose eath under his back, along his side, against his aching cheek. 

"...your Maker knew these things, but he turned from them, pagan as he was. He was from an angry, obdurate time, but he saw God's grace in you. ..." 

The world of the palazzo was one of opulent sin, decadence and damnation, according to Santino. Amadeo lifted his cheek from the dirt long enough to ask in a low, thin voice, "Is this stinking pit a monastery, then? How foolish that I did not recognize it sooner." 

Santino listened to him, dark eyes on him and listening so intently that Amadeo lost the scrap of wit he'd gathered to himself. Then he cocked his head. "We are creatures of Satan. This is natural to us. The dark is our sanctuary where we serve God, creating evil such that His light may shine brighter." 

Creatures of Satan. Serving God. The philosophy was beginning to become clear. 

Santino went on, intimating to Amadeo again and again that the life he'd lived before, the one he'd been plucked from, had been fraught with wickedness. It was forbidden to walk in places of light, forbidden to live amongst mortals, forbidden, forbidden, forbidden. Vampires were meant to be the haunts of the Earth, never moving in it, honoring the power of the Crucifix, never entering into places of worship, striking down those that did not hold to worship such that others would fear them- and thus would man fear Satan, and keep to the faith. 

"So you murdered my Master and my brothers for this," he said dully, earth on his cracked lips. Santino looked at him, and then turned away with the silent flutter of his shapeless cloak. The croaked words were all the obstinance Amadeo had left. 

He was left to lie there for so long that the boy thought, perhaps, this chamber might be his new prison. He startled when finally his position grew intolerable and he shifted, and Santino came back into view. The vampire was sitting but a few feet away on the floor, so silent he'd eluded even vampiric senses, like some awful specter. He was feeding bread crumbs to a rat on his shoulder, and another in his lap. 

"Do you think I love being here?" the vampire asked, moving his large hand slowly to the bowl of breadcrumbs, and then he looked up, locking eyes with the boy. Amadeo's breath tangled in his chest. "Here in the bowels of the Earth, with the rot of decay and the stench of death? Do I not have eyes with which to see the colors your greedy Master put to the canvas, or ears to hear the blasphemous music?" 

Amadeo waited for him to go on, unable to look away from his powerful dark gaze now. It was as though he were locked in place. "What has God made, or suffered to be made, that is distasteful? Sin is not repulsive in itself. One can only hope to endure pain, not grow to love it, little cherub. You hate us now, but you will learn." 

A door opened from somewhere in the chamber as if Santino had just willed it, and an awful, noxious new smell came to Amadeo's senses, forcing him to recall back through the days of darkness and starvation. The screaming of his brothers. The glowing of the pyre, the heat. The stench of burning flesh.... 

"You hearken back to the night we burned your Master and all his vain works, God forgive him, that he made not in service of the Lord but of himself. Perhaps this gift shall hasten our agreement." 

Amadeo opened his mouth to ask, "What agreement?" or perhaps, "What gift?", but before he got the words out, the vampire who had entered the room came into his field of vision. A Norseman, surely, tall and blonde but not nearly as beautiful as the Master had been. He held a great urn in his hands, and a nasty grin on his chiseled features. Amadeo realized the source of the stench too late and cried out, "No--!" 

Unfortunate that his mouth had been open. He gagged and fell to the side, eyes burning, trying to get away from the ashes as they were dumped over him. It was ash! The Norseman was laughing, shaking out the last of the great urn onto him. Santino watched on placidly, even as Amadeo heaved, squirming like a wretched animal, on his face with his hands scrubbing at his eyes, shaking himself off desperately. He could not get it out of his mouth--! 

Dear one," Santino said then, and his voice was rich and full of regret. He sent the Norse vampire away with a wave of his hand and apparent distaste at how the boy's agony amused him. "It would be so simple to torture you and turn that pompous little mind of yours inside out. You would make such a lovely little instrument for screams. But I have no taste for such things, and that is why I serve Satan so well; I have never come to enjoy cruelty. Why do you suffer for arrogance when you could suffer for the glory of God?" 

_\- - -_

He was taken back to his cell in the end. Santino went round and round the whole philosophy of the Children of Satan again while Amadeo desperately tried to scrub himself with his bony hands and arms, weak as he was and sickened and horrified by it all. 

When he was finally done, he asked again Amadeo if he would not join them, if he would suffer for God rather than for foolish pride. 

Amadeo spat at him. 

He did not struggle or squirm when they came, summoned by a simple snap of the fingers. Santino only watched with a sad, knowing gaze as Amadeo was taken out of the chamber of bones. "Poor child," he heard him say, sighing. "You have only begun to suffer." 

The body had been removed from his little cell; Amadeo went back to the corner furthest from where he'd placed it, and curled up in a ball. 

For the next twenty-two weeks he was kept there, fed only when his consciousness finally began to slip under into the blissful cold of oblivion. Santino came occassionally to talk to him, or rather, at him; imploring him to come to his senses, of all things, or repeating again and again the philosophy he and his coven lived by. 

By the end of it Amadeo was nodding along to the coven commandments. He was cold to the bone, and had been for ever. The palazzo was a distant memory. It was gone. The visions were only vague recollections, dreamlike and false. When he was let out again, he walked out of his own volition. He went into the arms of Santino and all his new siblings, the Children of Darkness. 


	8. The Long Sigh - 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! Bee here, sorry for taking so long with this chapter. Void and I planned on releasing two at once for Christmas, but we got busy with the holidays and then Void had wisdom teeth surgery, and we just got busy! So, two make up for it there wil be THREE new chapters up, including this one, and then hopefully we will be back on a one-chapter-per-week schedule. Thanks for sticking around, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season!

_1499_

In the following months, Amadeo learned from his new Master the ways of the Children of Darkness. He had a coffin appropriated for him, lined with soil from Venice because he could not recall the land of his birth beyond dim memories of snow.

He learned the sacred tenaments;

Never walk in places of light, or places of joy and merriment, for those are meant for mortals. Never enter into a church or other sacred place, for those are the sanctuary of the faithful and God may see it fit to smite any Child of Satan that dare desecrate such a place. Never take down a mortal on whom the crucifix could be seen, for they are under the protection of God;

Do not reveal your nature or the nature of any other immortal to a mortal, and then suffer them to live with the knowledge. Do not reveal the location of yours or any others' lairs or true names; you must be dead to the world, the only mark left upon it that you exist to be your gravestone;

Covens were formed across the globe, and in each one a covenmaster would be installed to manage all of their affairs, including overseeing the rituals and Sabbats, the creation of new vampires, and the destruction of those who would disobey- or those for whom it was time to go into the flames (the mad ones);

No vampire should ever be made from the blood of an ancient. Look to the folly of Marius, who'd created a fledgling with a demon's strength, trapped in a child's body. All vampires to be made should be beautiful and pleasing to the eye, all the better to please the Lord in their dark work;

If at any time the covenmaster or one of his flock should encounter a rogue vampire who did not obey these, or any of the other varius laws to protect their kind, they must seek to destroy that vampire on sight.

All of this he learned and more, walking with Santino through the catacombs or joining in the Sabbats, which in time he came to enjoy. The roar of the flame, the beat of the drum, the ritual frenzy it induced were the most exciting things in that dark little world in the womb of the earth.

He met Allesandra, a beautiful ancient woman vampire who wore cobwebs and dust as if they were silver lace and powder. It was she who comforted him when he felt the horror creeping in around him, his confidant.

Allesandra was the one who chose his name, once it was decided that Amadeo- containing the very word for God- was not a fit title for a Child of Darkness. Santino offered a variety of choices to the boy, who stood placidly before the throne of bones, and Allesandra made a sound in her throat when he said Armand.

So he became Armand.

\- - -

In the beginning, when he was still Amadeo and still felt keenly the gaping, hollow pit in his chest, the Norse vampire decided to taunt him. Amadeo was reading from a scroll that held one of the Sabbat chants, bare feet soaking up the chill of the stone and earthen floor, when quite abruptly a hand was on his head as if ruffling his hair.

"Thought I saw some ash in those red locks," the Norse vampire smirked cruelly, holding his hand up when Amadeo's head whipped around to him.

Well, Santino only shrugged when he came upon the little pyre Amadeo had made of the man shortly after.

"I never liked Alfredo," the covenmaster said, taking the heaving, gasping boy under his arm and patting his shoulders comfortingly. "He was from the pagan times, like your fool Master. He forgot that while cruelty is essential, a loyal servant of the Devil does not derive pleasure from the carrying out of it."

Amadeo stared at the flames, his hands half-clenched into fists, one still grasping the bloody candelabra. _Like your fool Master_ , he said.

\- - -

Armand discovered that the majority of the Children of Darkness were either betas or omegas. Santino, of course, was an alpha. His power was an aura around him that he could consciously flex like a muscle, demanding deference and respect. Sometimes, the boy thought back to Marius, the dream king, and the power that he used to be able to sense radiating off him. After he'd become a vampire himself, he'd only felt it now and then. Was it the intimate Blood between them? Had he purposely contained his power for Armand's comfort?

Well, what did it matter really, to dwell on that fantastical, unreal time. Allesandra was also an alpha, and apparently her mate had gone into the fire some two centuries before. She was not too sad about this, saying it had been his time. "You would think our gracious leader were a beta if not for how strong he is," she said, leaning in and lowering her voice conspiratorially. "In all our years he's never so much as sniffed at another."

Armand had to smile at that, imagining Santino fawning over one of the lowly omegas in their flock.

Himself, he found that the conditions he'd been put through- which, laughably, he'd come to see as something he shared with his family, rather than something that they had inflicted upon him- had slowed down his own instincts. For some five months, as he fed and filled out again and started to gain back some of his finer vampiric senses and abilities, he did not feel the heat.

When he did, Santino came to him immediately.

"Cherub of mine," he said, leaning along the wall. His face was the same color as a skull embedded into the stone, though infinitely more pleasing to the eye. Armand studied the differences as the covenmaster continued. He felt oddly light, and yet there was a heaviness in his center that he recognized instinctively as a precursor of rut. "I know that you came to us unbonded, and I rather prefer that when we recruit new members into our ranks. Now that you are with us, though, you should know that you are allowed to choose a mate among us if it pleases you. You need only my blessing for the union."

Armand could see the ridged bone that made up Santino's eye sockets if he peered closely enough. He looked again at the skull for reference, and back to Santino, finding the edge of the fine structure under his heavy brow. The words, the suggestion, were meaningless to him.

He knew that his brothers and sisters who were likewise unpaired came together to help each other through their respective heats and ruts. He wanted no part of it. Armand loved them, of course, his comrades in the darkness, but it was a distant sort of love. The idea of coming together with another, of rutting against the cool flesh of a fellow Child of Darkness...

It made him feel ill.

Santino sighed, looking beside him where the boy's eyes kept glancing, and then back at him. He put a hand on his shoulder. "Go to your coffin. Sleep, and stay there until this fades, which I promise it shall."

Armand went dutifully to his small, damp chamber, which was only a little larger than his old cell, and climbed into his coffin to sleep. By the second day, the heat raged through his core, mingled with the old hunger, up the back of his throat until he arched against the lid involuntarily, palms pressed to the walls as he grit his teeth and ground up against the wood fitfully. Visions flashed through his mind, visions of tan skin, sapphire eyes, until he screwed his eyes shut and willed them away.

What did it matter, other than that it was a tiresome inconvenience.

He felt the covenmaster's eyes on him when he emerged a few days later, thinner and hollow and rather more tousled. He ignored it. Likewise the boy paid no mind to the sensation of heaviness that still lingered in his gut, even after the heat had finally burned itself out. He went out to feed with Allesandra, and things went back to normal. There were hymns to sing, new chambers to carve into the earth, dark corners to haunt. Santino did not press the matter again.

\- - -

At least, not for a great while.

One evening after he'd gone out to feed some seven or eight months later, Armand found the catacombs empty. When he looked for them, he found his brothers and few sisters were already in the Hall of Bones. Santino was there, and so was Allesandra the vampire queen (for that was how he thought of her, even if she held no proper title), gorgeous in her ancient raiment of rags and low hip belt. The coven master smiled at him with great affection as he entered, and Armand lowered his gaze in dutiful respect.

"Tonight a great honor is bestowed upon you, my child," he began. When Armand glanced up he saw that Santino was in a new cloak of black velvet (ah, such a transgression against their rules, wasn't it?) for the occassion. "You are to become a leader, just as I am, in Paris. There is a coven there who have heard of your gentleness and your wisdom, and they have need of a new covenmaster. Their last went into the fire, as we all shall do eventually, back into the arms of Satan."

There was a murmur of praise, a few hands clapping. Armand was unsurprised; after all, he was an alpha, and a clever one at that. Santino came forward and Armand saw that he was wearing his old boots, the clunky pair with the ancient buckles. Such finery on his behalf. The leader bent down and pressed a kiss to his cheek, which Armand tipped his head to accept. Then the old queen came, and did the same, and one by one, his brothers and sisters kissed him on the cheeks as well, some embracing him, whispering congratulations or farewells.

"Now," Santino said, when it was done. He paused until Armand looked up at him in question. "It is customary for a new leader to bring with him his mate." He raised his eyebrows for emphasis. Armand looked down at the floor again, confused and wondering where his master was headed with this. Unease bubbled up in his chest.

Santino continued, "Since you have none, I have conferred with your covenmates and we have come to an accord. You may choose someone to go with you and to become your mate," he held out his arm now with the old subdued theatrical flare, and Armand saw that all his covenmates had left, except for a mixed handful of brothers and sisters, all of whom were looking at him shyly or eagerly.

There was silence for a moment. Pain surged through Armand, the pain of old, dizzying memories, memories that were less real than the dreams he had in his coffin each night. He felt his features shifting into a frown, the knot coiling in him uneasily. "I do not wish to take a mate," he said finally in a small voice, looking directly at Santino. The thick brow creased.

"Your travels will be long, and you will be tested every step of the way," the coven leader said, and there was a note not of imploring, but of encouragement. Reconsider this generous gift.

The Children of Satan respected the bond of alpha and omega, of course, but bonds that were made within the coven were naturally formed only with explicit permission from the covenmaster, and much contemplation on his part as to the benefits of the partnership. All things were to be determined by him, the leader of them all.

Now Armand was rejecting his magnanimous offer.

"With all due respect, Sir, I refuse. I do not wish to take a mate."

The crease in his brow deepened dangerously. Behind him, Allesandra had a look of knowing sadness. The omegas who'd stayed behind wavered and drew back from the covenmaster, who had loosed his infamous control over his powerful aura and was looking at Armand with sudden contempt.

'Rot alone in your solitude, then,' he said directly into his mind, the mental voice low and angry, and it felt like a curse. Armand lowered his head compulsively as the power washed over him, and the shame of rejecting the will of the master. In the end, he was not made to take a mate.

Allesandra accompanied him to Paris instead, the old alpha silent in her understanding of him. He was deeply grateful for her company, and relieved when, upon finally arriving at the new coven, she announced that she would be staying with them. France was the land of her birth, after all, and she had wished to come back someday for a very long time. 

The Paris coven welcomed them both with open arms and hearts, bowing their heads in recognition of their new leader. Armand did not think he exuded an aura like Santino had, or like the vision of his old Master Marius, but they genuflected to him and deferred and showed him all the same respect.

He was the master now. All affairs were his to manage on behalf of the coven.

His coven.

His family.

\- - -

_1500_

None of his new subjects had said anything about his lack of a mate, of course. It would be disrespectful to the highest degree. Santino himself had not formed any bond, after all, the better to dedicate himself to the service of God through Satan and the ruling of his flock. If Armand had made the same personal vow, it was his own business. He thought back on the damning statement, _rot alone in your solitude_ , often.

This did not stop a few of the omegas in his own coven from making subtle offers as time went on. Most especially did this happen when the auburn-haired boy's rut started, at which time he placed Eleni, a capable beta vampire woman, in charge while he sequestered himself away to ride it out.

One evening after leading a glorious sermon to rally his flock for the coming winter season, a season ripe with death and mortal despair- and of course the great holy winter Sabbat- Felix approached him before Armand could get away to his private quarters. He was young, younger than even Armand had been when he was made, but his Maker had been weak. This was no monster with a youth's countenance, like himself.

His grey eyes looked up at Armand hopefully as he caught his arm. He was a few inches shorter, but his manner was diminutive and soft and made him seem smaller. He was a gorgeous omega with dirt on his cheek and an imploringly open mind. The covenmaster felt the old impulse kicking in, the one that told him this boy was perfect, that he needed to be claimed, just _smell_ that sweet perfume....

Armand looked at him, forcing himself to hold the boy's gaze until Felix looked away respectfully. His loins were already warming, the beginnings of rut taking root. His belly was full coals and he knew that the omegas of his coven could smell him, his pheromones, wafting off him like incense smoke. "Sir," the boy said, apologetically, quietly. "Is there anything you require of me?"

An offer. A tempting one, at that, if not for the malaise in his chest. Armand stared hard at his dark hair, his pale forehead. The small ears and tender curve of the neck. He reached out to wipe at Felix's cheek with his sleeve, though his clothes were just as soiled and dirty, and saw that his hand wavered. Bless him, the boy closed his eyes and leaned into the touch, lips parting softly.

Then Armand looked away, taking back his arm. "No, Felix. Return to your own work." Haunt someone else's doorstep.

Felix pursed his lips, brow furrowing, and in the faint candlelight, he saw that his cheeks were coloring. It had taken courage to come forward, after all, and now he was feeling the sting of rejection. Armand sighed through his nose. "I'm sure Henri would appreciate your company. Why don't you go to him." The boy looked up in surprise at that, forgetting to be respectful and demure to his leader for a moment, and then he smiled, a small expression of thanks.

Armand spent five days writhing in his coffin after that.

If anyone came near to his burial chamber, he knew; he could smell the perfume of his omega charges as clearly as if they were laying there with him, even through the door. He had to bite the flesh of his own hand against a moan. It was torture. How had Santino managed this?

Touching himself only made it worse, even though there were times Armand could no longer stand the tension and took his throbbing cock in hand, hissing through his fangs at the sensation. When he finished, the base of his cock tightened as if to knot a mate; but with none, he only felt taut and nearly in pain, electricity shooting through his fingers, as if on the edge of an orgasm that never came.

Delirious finally, and spent, the vampire lay uncomfortably in his coffin with a sheen of sweat making his rags stick to his skin. He fell to dreaming, and the dreams were of red silk sheets and red velvet curtains and red, red, red.

\- - -

It came to a head nearly a year later. Felix, bless his little black heart, was persistent. Armand supposed he should be flattered, but in the end the boy only made it harder for him to endure. "What is it, Felix?" Armand asked rather a little too roughly as the boy hovered in the entryway. He was looking through the few books and scrolls that the Paris coven kept in the driest alcove of the catacombs, considering the merits of installing more candles by which they might read in this area, and staunchly ignoring the _heavy_ sensation in his gut which had only grown worse with the passing months.

Felix came a few steps closer, and Armand wished he could physically repel the boy. He had to know what he was doing to him, _had_ to. "Sir...forgive me. May I--- that is, would you like my company tonight?"

There was a rotting table pushed into the corner against the wall, though there were no chairs. A few items lay on it, and now Armand turned away from Felix to look at them, breathing through his clenched teeth and seeing nothing. The _need_ \--! It had flared up as if Felix were kindling to the fire, when only a moment ago Armand had been able to ignore the slow warming in favor of reading. He needed to leave, but his ward was between him and the exit.

Felix took a few steps closer and Armand stiffened, sensing the warmth radiating off the boy. He'd fed recently, must have. His skin itched, craving that warmth, and when Felix touched his arm it was scalding. "Sir," he tried again, as the coven master's head lowered. "Let me stay with you." The softness of his voice was underpinned with knowledge, sly and knowing and inviting.

Armand reached out to take his hand and remove it from his person.

The smaller boy yelped when he clenched his fist around his smaller hand, grabbing roughly, and then he was being pulled _forward_ and Armand had stepped to one side, and the boy's hips were colliding with the table. Armand went for the hall, _escape_ , and watched himself roughly shut the door into the alcove instead.

Felix was laying still against the table, bent over it with his back arched beautifully, and a sweat had broken out across his lithe form already. He must have been fifteen when he was made, sixteen at the very most; he was small and sinewy and perfect. Armand physically reeled when he turned to look at him, the scents and the _sight_ of the boy overwhelming.

As if he could sense the covenmaster's eyes on him, Felix arched his back a little further, offering himself. Armand _growled_.

There was no artistry, now; only rough hunger as belts were undone, breeches pushed out of the way. Felix gave a sharp breath as the cold air hit his exposed buttocks, and then tepid hands were grabbing him, groping for a moment before fingers slid between his cheeks.

Armand let out a rattling breath, feeling the slickness waiting for him there. His cock was _aching_ , all the pent up ruts that he'd spent locked away sitting heavy in his balls, agonizing. His teeth throbbed with his pulse. Armand had to force himself to look away from the sight of Felix's slim back, the tunic slipping to expose some of the creamy skin of his shoulder. He would not do this thing, could not--!

The silence in which the both of them breathed heavily was broken by the sound of ripping fabric. Felix leaned up on his elbow, trying to look over his shoulder at what was going on, making a small noise in his throat when Armand pushed him back down against the table. His tunic was beyond repair now, but the vampire didn't give a damn, wadding the fabric and stuffing it into his own mouth as a guard.

Felix opened his mouth to say something, but instead made a high, thin wail as Armand lined himself up and thrust into him without warning. It was shattering, the heat and the tightness. The coven master made a guttural sound as his cock was enveloped into the slick vice of the boy's arse, the _shock_ of sensation rocking through his entire body like a thunderclap.

He couldn't wait for him to adjust. Felix scrabbled at the table for an anchor, scrolls falling to the ground and rolling away as Armand pulled out and shoved forward again and then set a vicious pace. His hips hit the edge of the table with bruising force, cheek sliding against the rough surface, mouth open in hiccuping cries, toes curling. All he could do was hold himself up and in place for his master.

The older vampire had enough composure to think of his partner, if only to lift him by the waist so that he was on the table and not just folded awkwardly over it. The change in angle made Felix _wail_ , completely open now to the stabbing thrusts of his master's cock against his prostate, his own neglected length trapped against his belly. The younger vampire's slender legs spread further in this position, curling at the knees so that his heels were against Armand's back, holding onto him the only way he could.

Armand pushed in to the very root, looking down at where they were joined through a red haze, and groaned around the makeshift gag at the sight of his own cock, slick with omega, pulling out of the clinging heat and then shoving back in. Everything was red, red, red. He would not let himself fold over the boy, not with such a hasty guard against biting him. His nails dug into Felix's hips as the coil tightened and tightened, and it started to become more difficult to pull out.

Distantly, some rational part of him said he should stop before his knot locked them in place, but it was screamed over by the instinct to _force _his swollen cock back in, and then he could not draw back anymore and he ground against the boy's supple ass, making him mewl and claw at the wood as his prostate was mercilessly stimulated.__

__

__Felix came before the older vampire, every muscle seizing and clamping down on the thick knot, milking him. Armand growled, lips curling, teeth bared as he arched, and then he was coming inside the boy in great crashing waves. His vision burst with black spots as every ounce of pent-up heat uncoiled in burst after burst._ _

__

__When it was finally done, the vampire collapsed on top of the boy, making the table creak dangerously under them. Felix made a tiny 'umph' noise as the weight of his master came down, squirming feebly. His legs dangled behind them. Armand panted through his nose, clenching the bloodied fabric in his mouth as the instinct rolled over him, and nuzzled at Felix's shoulder fitfully._ _

__

__Armand tried to draw back eventually as his pulse slowed, and was dismayed when he found that he couldn't. He slumped miserably against the boy. Felix felt him trying to disengage and went very still against the table, wincing at the pull. He was laying in his own bloody fluids-- some of the old scrolls were going to be ruined, surely. Eventually he shifted to pillow his head in his arms, sighing contently as the covenmaster gave up and settled on top of him more comfortably._ _

__

__It took the better part of an hour for Armand's knot to go down. Felix was dozing happily by the time he shifted and realized he could finally disengage, and then the boy made a small noise of surprise. Armand was already pulling out the bloody rag that had served as his safeguard against biting, grimacing in disgust. The ruined tunic was shrugged out of and used to wipe himself off, then handed to Felix rather awkwardly to do the same._ _

__

__"Do...do you feel better, sir?" Armand looked up from retying his breeches. Felix's gray eyes were huge and hopeful, and still a little hazy with contentment. He would have been a fetching man, Armand thought._ _

__

__"Yes, Felix," he said after a moment. The weight he'd grown used to carrying in his groin had dissipated. Actually, Armand felt quite light, standing barefoot on the floor while his partner wiped himself off and then hopped off the table to try to clean it up, too. Perhaps even a little light-headed from relief; he was filthy and sated. He was free. Felix turned to look at him and smiled broadly, clearly pleased that he was able to help his master._ _

__

__Eleni had a wry, knowing twinkle in her eyes when Armand informed her that he did not need her to act in his stead. She said nothing of it, only nodded. Allesandra looked pleased that he was pleased, and that was all._ _

__

__So, he did not need to sequester himself away after all. He needed only to have a willing partner. Of course, there were other unbonded vampires in the coven. Armand wondered at himself for not having taken this route sooner; after all, a handful of his subjects made it from heat to heat without a mate. He still felt the shiver of revulsion at the idea of coupling with anyone, but his mind's sensibilities had been completely drowned out by his body's needs in the end. That thought was a little discomforting._ _

__

__Three months later, Felix appeared in his doorway just as Armand was rising from his coffin, like a slim ghost. He hadn't yet felt the tightening of the coil, himself, but the moment he laid eyes on the youth, it immediately wound taut in his gut, like a switch being turned. "Felix..." he murmured, noting that he felt no hostility as the boy entered his lair, closing the door behind him. He went boldly right up to the coven master, sliding between his open legs, to offer himself for a silent kiss._ _

__

__This would become their way for the next five years._ _


	9. The Long Sigh - 3

_1505_

Slowly, Armand’s unions with Felix became routine. When his ruts came, Felix would wordlessly come to his chambers, sometimes in little more than the dark cloaks their covenmates wore, bare and naked and _vulnerable_ beneath the thick fabric.

What they did together was no secret, but all the same, Armand did not speak of it. He treated Felix no differently when all was said and done. Outside of his chambers, their relationship was master and subject. On good days, he counted Felix as his friend. The rest of the coven knew about it as well, but out of respect for their leader, no one else spoke of it either.

Except Allesandra. 

It happened one evening after a sermon. The coven had dispersed, leaving her and Armand in the great hall alone, and she asked him to walk with her, implying that she wanted to talk. Allesandra was an interesting conversation partner, so of course Armand readily accepted her offer. They walked through the catacombs together with the coven master politely offering his arm to her and Allesandra accepting it with a smile. This was comfortable. Familiar, even, in a strange way. With her, there was no border of coven master and coven member. With her, he could simply exist. It was nice. 

“The coven has grown quite a bit since your arrival, wouldn’t you say?” she asked, but kept her dark eyes ahead of them. 

“Yes. The faith has reached many.”

“It is because you lead well, pretty one. Your flock has grown not only in size, but in knowledge, under your tutelage.”

Armand looked up at her then, a slight tilt of his head, though he did feel a bit flattered. 

"Especially that young one...what was his name?” Allesandra hummed, before looking down at the younger vampire with only her eyes. “Felix?” 

Armand stiffened. “...Yes, he has learned much and is a great asset to us.” 

“Oh, I agree.” A smile came to the old queen's face. “Such a sweet boy, too. Kind and helpful. I would venture to say he is a friend to everyone here."

Armand’s brows furrowed a little. He was not sure where Allesandra was going with this, but something in his gut told him he did not like it. “He gets along well with the others," he supposed.

Allesandra skirted her point more closely now. "I may be old and mad, but I'm not blind, Armand. You have become quite close to Felix as of late. You two spend much time together now.” 

“Only when necessary," he replied, quickly enough that it was apparent he was defending.

“Is that so?” 

Armand did not reply. Silence fell between them. Allesandra was kind, but he did not like where she was going. He had a mutually beneficial arrangement with Felix, and that was all. Thinking on the subject made him feel like squirming with discomfort; there was nothing more between them. But Allesandra did not seem to think so. It was not long before she said as much.

“There has been some talk lately,” she began, and Armand felt a sense of dread as to where the conversation was headed. “You and Felix are very close, after all. Some are wondering if you will take him as a mate. I confess, I myself am wondering such things," she said, and there was light ribbing in her voice, as if jesting that Armand hadn't told her about this sooner.

So there it was. 

Armand scowled and then quickly schooled his expression into a light frown. Allesandra was not trying to offend him, and being cross with her was unwarranted. “I have no intentions of taking Felix, nor anyone else, as my mate," he clarified.

After a moment, Allesandra sighed and slid her hand over Armand’s arm to take his hand in her own, almost like a mother. “I do not understand why. The two of you get along quite well. He is sweet and you are both young. It is a good match, one you would not grow tired of in your years.” 

“I simply do not wish for a mate.” That was what Armand said, at least. Deep down, he knew it was more than that, but he did not want to consider it at more than surface value. He had already gone over this alone, forcing himself to think about it past the reflexive distaste. He knew he should want to- he and Felix had been together more than enough times now, got along well enough. But when he really thought of taking a mate, spending eternity with someone...all Armand felt was bone deep pain. 

It hurt to think of having a mate; the entire concept hurt him. Alphas and Omegas, coming together and pairing for eternity, having no real choice in the matter. Every alpha would one day find an omega, and vice-versa. When he thought of it his heart ached, a deep-seated pain that made him feel as if there was someone, something that he wanted that he could never have. The pain of loss. 

There were faint memories of red and passion to accompany the pain. Sometimes he dreamed of pale skin, others of bronze, and he would wake with a strange sense of wanting. It would fade, but it still happened. And he could not force himself to consider these visions any more than he could force himself to want Felix by his side.

“I only wish to see you happy, my dear. And you must think of Felix- I think the boy cares for you more than you are willing to admit.” Allesandra was incalculably wise in her age, and Armand usually valued her input on all matter. Now he did not want to hear it, shaking his head. 

“We are just friends. Sometimes we aid each other, but there is nothing more between us than that. Felix holds more affection for Henri than he does for me," he lied.

The woman hummed in thought, gently running her thumb across the skin of Armand’s hand. Standing there, looking so deep in thought and so beautiful, Armand thought distantly that she resembled a marble statue. Elegant curves and edges, porcelain skin, gray hair that fell over her shoulders, a beautiful statue dressed up in dusty lace. There was a certain sadness to her as well, but Allesandra never spoke of it and Armand never asked, though he knew it had to do with her lost love. 

“If that is what you choose, then I shall not push you, child,” Her hand left Armand’s to card through his auburn hair, tucking it behind his ear and giving him a warm, affectionate smile. "I only hope that you do not keep that heart of yours closed off forever." There was pain in her voice, and to think that Allesandra was hurting made Armand’s own heart ache. 

“If and when the right mate comes, then I promise you I will not close myself off to them.”

Allesandra smiled and leaned down to place a gentle kiss upon his forehead. 

“Thank you.”

\- - -

Some months later, it was Felix’s turn to disappear. No one was bothered, as this was typical for the alphas and omegas of the coven, but that night Eleni came to Armand, smelling faintly of Felix and his heat.

“Sir,” She began, standing in the doorway of his chambers. Armand looked up from the scroll he had been scribbling on, nose crinkling a bit from the scent virtually wafting off of her. It was the smell of heady pheromones and heat.

“What is it, Eleni?” He asked, setting down his quill. 

Eleni stood tall and strong, unwavering under the gaze of her Master, a trait which Armand liked very much about her. She was compassionate, yes, but she was brave too, and did not turn into a sputtering mess before him. It was her confidence which made Armand pick her to lead the coven in his stead when his ruts came. 

“As I’m sure you are aware, Felix is currently in his cycle," she began, delicately. It sounded clinical coming from her, a beta.

Armand hummed in response, crossing his arms lightly. “I am aware, yes.” 

Eleni pressed on. “He is in need of an alpha if he is to resume his duties in the coven in a timely manner.”

Armand was aware of this, as well. The unbonded alphas and omegas of his coven needed each other during these times, to relieve the burden of their nature so they could return to their business as normal. If only they could all be betas, then their service to God would not be interrupted so.

“Send Henri to him, then, or one of the others if Henri is not to his liking. Perhaps Valentin.”

“Sir, he has asked for you.” 

Silence fell, and for a time Armand simply stared at her, before shaking his head and turning back to his scroll. 

“I have other things to do, Eleni. As I said, send Henri.” 

There was a moment’s hesitation before Eleni gave the affirmative and turned to leave, closing the door behind her and leaving Armand alone to think. 

His brows furrowed. Felix had been through plenty of heat cycles during their arrangement, but never before had Armand gone to him, and never before had Felix asked. Looking at it from the perspective of helping each other, he supposed it made sense...but why now? 

Allesandra’s words came back. _Felix cares for you more than you are willing to admit._

The thought of that made him feel...strange. Not a good sort of strange, either. He felt a knot in his stomach and the old pain in his heart. If Felix loved him, he would inevitably want to mate. But Armand still felt the same. He had no great love for him in his heart; there was nothing more than the light affection that he felt towards everyone he considered a friend. 

Felix was made young, but he was not stupid. He was aware Armand did not want a mate. Being his friend, Armand trusted Felix not to get any silly ideas in his head about being the exception.

Everything would be fine.

\- - -

Everything was not fine. In another few months, it was time for Armand to go into rut, shutting himself up into his coffin until Felix came. Their union was the same as always, with Armand taking him roughly over the surface of his coffin until he was knotted deep within the bohy and the painful heat in his loins had dissipated. 

They lay there together for some time, panting and coming down from the rush of endorphins. Slowly, Armand’s knot lessened until it was completely gone, leaving him comfortably seated within Felix and able to remove himself when he wished. He had been about to do so, in fact, to carry on with the normal routine of cleaning himself and the boy off before sending him on his way, when Felix’s voice broke the quiet.

“You can do it, you know. I wouldn’t mind…”

Armand lifted himself off Felix’s back to look at the boy, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Felix met his gaze for only a moment, before color filled his cheeks and he looked the wall ahead of them, tilting his head to one side slightly the way he always did. It was more tempting than he realized, and Armand knew Felix understood the biological imperative. 

“I mean-- the bond," he explained with a helpless shrug. "You always stop yourself. You cover your mouth so you can’t bite down, but...you don’t have to. It would be an honor to be yours.” The boy’s voice grew quiet, and Armand did not have to reach into his mind to know what he was thinking.

Something had happened somewhere in their time together, and now it had gone too far. It could not be undone. There was an uncomfortable silence between the two. Then Armand’s voice filled the space. 

“I do it for myself, Felix. Not for you.” 

He withdrew then, leaving Felix bare in the chilly air, and set to dressing himself. He gathered what was there of the boy’s own clothing, setting it down on the lid of the coffin beside him. The gesture was clear enough- it was time for Felix to go. But he did not. 

“You’re suffering without a mate, Sir. We all can see it.” The boy had stood up, turning to look Armand in the face with those impossibly large eyes. Now it was the older vampire’s turn to avoid his gaze. He knew exactly where this was going, and did not like it. “Please- let me help you.” 

Armand scoffed, pulling his cloak back over his shoulders. He needed to wash up, but he wanted Felix gone first. “I don’t need your help. This is enough.” 

“You and I both know that’s not true. I-- I know it’s forward, but…” Before Armand could stop it, Felix’s slim hands were reaching for him, and then his arms were embracing him tenderly, a head of caramel-colored hair tucking beneath his chin. “Bond with me, Armand. You don’t have to force yourself not to anymore. I’ve thought about it, and I want it.”

This could not go on any longer. 

Armand took the boy’s shoulders and used them to pry himself from the embrace, looking down at Felix with something akin to a scowl. 

“That _was_ too forward, Felix.” 

The boy stammered, his hands moving to rest on top of Armand’s, and he lowered his head in submission.

“Forgive me, sir, I just-- we’ve spent so long together now, a-and I know you don’t want to force a bond on me, but as I said before, it would be such an honor to be yours…”

Ah. That was the problem. Now Armand did scowl, pulling his hands from Felix’s shoulders and turning his back to him.

“You misunderstand the nature of our arrangement," he said to the door, making his voice firm. "I take you because it is convenient. I did not wish to sleep my way through the omegas in the coven just for the sake of an unavoidable biological need. You made an offer, and I took it.” He could feel waves of distress beginning to radiate off of the younger vampire now. It made his instincts scream at him to turn around, to embrace the poor omega, to accept him and claim him, but Armand refused. He did not want this. He did not want _him_. 

“You are no different to me than the rest of the unclaimed omegas here. I do not want to bond with you any more than I want to with them.” 

Armand swore he could hear Felix’s heart breaking. He could not look him in the face. Felix was a friend and he took no pleasure from being so cruel, but that was it- he was just a friend. He had to understand that.

“I--” The boy’s voice sounded choked and small, now. “I-I’m sorry. It was my mistake.” 

There was the sound of rustling clothes and hasty footsteps, and then Felix moved past him quickly to take his leave. He stopped only when Armand called for him. 

“...Yes, Sir?” The hope in his voice was painful, the way he turned to look at his master.

“Don’t come to see me again.” 

Felix only gave a quiet affirmation before quickly taking his leave. Even with the door closed between them, Armand knew he was crying. 

With a sigh, he sat down in an old chair he'd brought into his lair and let his head loll back to look up at the ceiling. What a mess this had all turned out to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone else feel bad for Felix?


	10. The Vampire Lestat- 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Void here! I'm almost fully recovered from surgery and I did some editing to the last update (The Vampire Lestat). It's been expanded and broken into two chapters (TVL 1 and 2), so make sure to reread them both. Sorry about that!

_1505_

Time passed slowly.

Armand did not allow Felix into his lair any longer; instead he threw himself into the kill with ever more fervor. He found that, if he softened his gaze as he delved into the minds of mortals, he could create visions; and he used this to his advantage. Some nights, restless and wanting, the auburn-haired covenmaster spent his frustrations on up to three helpless victims.

Within the coven, his authority remained unshaken. In fact, when it was time yet again for his primal instincts to lord over him, his flock was ever more obesiant. The few other alphas gave him his berth. Eleni turned a blind eye to his churlish behavior, and Armand overheard her thoughts that she was glad to be a beta.

If only.

The unbonded omegas of his flock, having seen events unfold with Felix, left him alone; though Armand would be lying if he said he never again gave in and let someone into his proverbial bed. These affairs tended to be short, rough, and without tenderness; and were all the less satisfying for it. Felix himself, though he could not completely avoid Armand, made himself scarce as much as possible, which was good and well to the covenmaster. The boy needed to let go of his feelings and see logic.

Sleep, he found, was a needed reprieve. Even though the contents of his dreams were bizarre and disturbing, Armand rested well enough. Allesandra remained his comforting ear, offering advice when he asked, or dispensing wisdom to him when she felt he needed it.

It was she who roused him from the bitterest nightmares, the ones in which he walked from room to room through a grand, marble-floored palace, and murdered the youths that slept under red blankets.

"You dream the dreams of those who are mad, Armand," she said, brushing a lock of auburn hair out of his face as he rose, frowning tenderly. "You must not succumb to it. You mustn't leave me, you cannot."

"I won't succumb, Allesandra," Armand reassured her, putting his hand over hers. Her skin was cold and soft, like a pair of fine gloves over her bones. And though he said this to her, he kept the breadth and depth of his growing despair to himself. It was the only thing he never shared. Eventually, even Allesandra became only a distant comfort.

He began to forget altogether that there had been a time before Les Innocents. He had come from Venice to lead this coven, yes, and in Venice he had answered to Santino. They still exchanged correspondence (though it was heavily coded). The letters from Italy reminded him that there was a world outside of France, but beyond that, there were only dim shadows of pain. Eventually, even the letters slowed and then stopped, and Les Innocents became his entire universe.

Sometimes, Armand would sit in the tiny library alcove and stare at the couple of rings on his fingers in the candlelight. He tilted his head this way and that slowly, studying how the light caught in the facets of the gems. Where had he gotten these...? Not off a victim, he didn't think. Were they given to him? Who would give the covenmaster these vain and petty tokens?

Why would he not remove them, even as he thought about how it was a transgression against their commandments to own things so fine?

Sure as the sunset, the quiet vampire queen would eventually appear in the door and ask him if he was making preparations for the next Sabbat. Then Armand would put the matter out of his mind, grateful for the balm over the old wounds that only sometimes threatened to reopen, and they would pluck through the books to begin gathering hymns to be sung at the next ritual bonfire.

Paris grew and shifted around them. Buildings were toppled and new ones were erected in their stead. The people were restless; the people were losing faith, then regaining it, like the ebb and flow of the tide. Managing the affairs of his ragged family kept the vampire distracted, kept the shadows at bay. There was nothing else.

The Children of Darkness continued to haunt the alleys and graveyards of Paris for another three hundred years.

When it finally came down around Armand, it was because of a man clad in red velvet.

\- - -

_1780_

Henri was the first one to see him. He rushed down the steps under Les Innocents and straight to the covenmaster, panting from exertion before him. "A... A vampire, sir," he said between gasps, and Armand stiffened, scanning his open mind for the details.

His breath caught as images came, jerky and confused, as Henri had been when he ducked back behind cover. Red velvet and fur. It made something ancient in him scream.

Scowling, Armand forced himself to take in all the details his ward had gotten, ignoring the way his stomach plunged. Tall, blonde, curly-haired, wearing red velvet and wolf fur. Strutting around like the city was his playground. He was disgustingly vain, rings on every finger and crisp white lace at his throat, even powdering his face in the fashion of these strange times.

But he was, beyond a doubt, a vampire.

"I've seen enough," Armand said, getting up. "We must destroy this fool."

"That's not all," Henri said quickly, a note of desperation in his voice. "He walks in the places of light! Sir, he was seen entering a church!"

Armand looked at him, hard. "He was?"

Henri nodded rapidly, looking to his covenmaster for answers, reassurance, anything.

"All the more reason we must act swiftly," Armand supplied, brow creasing. "The wrath of God shall fall on him like so much fire, and we will bear the torches."

\- - -

It was almost pathetically easy to tail the rogue. Armand had told Henri to keep the information to himself, in the end, though he knew that the whole coven would be aware of the interloper within a week. They were not blind children, and this bastard that trod upon their territory did so boldly and without a care.

Even so, Armand followed his trail alone from the rooftops, keeping pace with him even when he seemed possessed by some wild streak and loosed his phenominal strength to gallavant around- sometimes riding on top of the very carriages that rattled down the streets. True, he was beautiful. He was obviously the product of some aristocratic family, decked in jewels and the genteel manner that spoke of high breeding. He moved with an effortless grace that came partly from being an immortal and partly from being raised a nobleman's son.

Armand saw him go into churches. He watched him dance among and even _with_ mortals, laughing gayly and barely even bothering to disguise his fangs. He watched as all around him mortals paid no attention to the pale skin and gleaming eyes, and how they were even enchanted by them and drawn to him, like moths to a dark flame. He warmed himself by firesides. He held glasses of wine to his nose to enjoy the fragrance, then handed it off to a pretty mortal who would later be pressed against his chest in the fatal embrace. Disgusting.

Armand hated him intensely.

Not only was he brazen, he was gifted, too. The coven master startled when suddenly the blonde's head whipped around, looking directly where Armand had been only a moment before. "Show yourself!" he shouted, and alpha strength rolled off him.

Hiding in the shadows, Armand felt the sudden, burning impulse to step out into the light, to show himself, to loose his own strength and set it against the other vampire's. The feeling was so foreign that it gave him pause, and kept him from giving in to it.

In the coven, he was universally recognized as the leader; now, he was being challenged.

 _Alpha aggression_ , Armand thought, and scowled fiercely. Well, he would best this fool. He would die in a great and glorious fire, and things would go back to the comforting dullness of before. He wanted to rip out the yellow hair, destroy the red velvet coat, and never have to look at either of them again.

\- - -

The next night, Armand loitered in an abandoned flat. It was the best vantage to observe the red-clad apostate, as he in turn observed a mortal across the street. The blonde was laying on a rooftop to listen in on the mortals below, a man and two women, but it was clearly the man who held him in near rapture. Armand caught the thread of the conversation easily;

This heathen vampire was called Lestat, and these had been his friends when he was mortal. 

He had not shown himself to them yet, but he ached to do so. Seems he had enough sense to know things could never be as they had been when he lived.

The man, Nicki, was half-mad with knowing that his friend was not gone, merely ignoring him for some reason he could not understand. His heart was held together in two halves, fractured across the whole. He suspected foul play, as did the others, but bristled at any mention of it, wholly convinced his lover lived still.

The whole petty drama unfolded before cold, calculating brown eyes. Nicki could be of use to them.

Lestat loitered around the flats until his human friends finally called it a night, by which time Armand had grown thoroughly bored of the whole sordid affair, even if Nicki played the violin rather well. Dawn was a mere two hours away, which hopefully entailed that Lestat would be heading to wherever he kept his lair. The boy tailed after the rogue blonde as stealthily as three hundred years of immortality allowed, which is to say, even someone with the brutish strength of Lestat would have to try very hard to detect him.

Armand was hardly surprised when he realized Lestat was riding out of town and to an abandoned citadel, which they had known for centuries to be the resting place of Magnus. The old pagan vampire was as ancient as he was powerful, but none of the Children of Darkness had seen him in at least a century, and even that sighting was only a glance; easily mistaken.

They hadn't bothered to deal with him because, in all likelihood, Magnus had gone into the fire a long time ago of his own volition. That, or he was sleeping the death sleep somewhere under the ruins of the fortress. No one ever heard him, which meant he either kept his mind under lock and key perpetually, or more likely, there was nothing to hear.

Well, now Armand knew it had been foolish to dismiss the matter. Now, here was a fresh young bastard vampire with all of Magnus' strength and none of his resignation, tromping about the Paris boulevards. His power radiated off him carelessly, unbothered and unaware of the intricacies of his nature.

Armand would rip him apart.

\- - -

Another atrocity took place before Armand found his chance, however.

Making a vampire out of the very womb that bore him life--! Giving the Dark Gift out of pure mortal selfishness! It was _disgusting_. And now here was another monstrously strong fledgling to complicate matters further.

Eventually, Armand had to determine that he was no match for the both of them. It would have to be together that they were struck down; if they tried to take one separately, they would undoubtedly be ambushed by the other. He would need the strength of his coven...but even then, they may not be able to best this pair of tall, powerful vampires.

They would need a trump card. An extra chip.

Well, that was easy enough.

Armand broke off from tailing the pair as they rode towards Magnus' tower in the wee hours of the morning, and shot back towards Paris. With the two of them out of pocket, Nicki was easy prey. With him, Armand would hold the vampire Lestat and his abomination of a fledging in his grasp. The coven would reign victorious, coming out of the fray stronger than before. They would banish Lestat and his wretched excuse for a company and all would be as it should. 

Or so he hoped.


	11. The Vampire Lestat- 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Void here! I'm almost fully recovered from surgery and I did some editing to the last update (The Vampire Lestat). It's been expanded and broken into two chapters (TVL 1 and 2), so make sure to reread them both. Sorry about that!

_1780_

The mortal Nicolas, who was well on his way to full insanity after witnessing Lestat's gross spectacle in the theatre, went so easily into their arms that he may as well have come willingly.

Armand crept down from the roof silently, bare feet on the railing and then lighting gently upon the balcony. The door was locked, but a quick twist of the knob stripped the mechanical insides thoroughly enough that when he pushed, it gave way.

The flat was more cramped than it had seemed from across the street; though it was clearly a well-off little space. Polished wood gleamed in the faint light, sumtuous curtains barely catching the faint breeze, and all around the smell of potpourri assaulted Armand's senses. Yes, Lestat had tucked his dear friend away quite nicely.

Too bad for the both of them.

Nicki was sleeping fitfully, dark hair splayed out on the pillow beneath his head. Armand took a moment to truly look at this man that Lestat was so fixated on. He had a somber sort of beauty about him, the kind that artists of Armand's era would have tried to capture on canvas. His only flaw, at least on the surface, were the faint dark circles around the eyes.The vampire felt that, even when he smiled, this mortal would look somehow sad and bitter.

Holding in a breath, Armand gently dipped into the sleeping man's mind, and then back out unobtrusively. No wonder that brute virtually slobbered over him but was deathly afraid to come near. He was a beautiful lunatic, or just about to become one.

In fact, he was exactly the type of man that the younger vampires in his coven thought would make good servants of Satan. They were wrong, of course. The Dark Gift would either heal or shatter that fragile sanity, and both options would be ruinous. If they emerged from their graves whole and sane, they would never follow the ways of the Children of Darkness. If they came out broken entirely, they were of no use to anyone.

Nicholas was doomed, having an idiot vampire for a lover. Lestat could not let his own mother go into the arms of death when it was clearly her time; he would inevitably turn this hapless boy for the same selfish reasons, and destroy him in the process.

Or rather, he would have. The bed shifted under the weight of Armand's knee as the boy knelt on it, one arm resting on the opposite side of the sleeping man. Long lashes fluttered against pale cheekbones...and then Nicki woke with a start that quickly became a scream.

\- - -

Armand watched placidly as Nicki railed against the bars of the rough wooden cage they'd stuffed him into, crouching on the pile of kindling scrap that his coven had assembled at his word. He'd drained the man just enough to sap his strength, enough to keep him from waking the entire block as he dragged him back to the cemetery.

Eventually, Nicki curled into the corner of his tiny prison, rejecting the horror around him and retreating into his mind. The auburn-haired boy watched the slow rise and fall of the violinist's chest. He was beautiful, that was certain. He understood Lestat's attraction fully now that he'd tasted Nicki, why he didn't dare go near the man now that he was a creature of the night. Nicki was delicate in a way that made one want to break him, just to watch how the pieces would glimmer as they fell. To a vampire, he was irresistable.

Lestat would make a vampire out of Nicki because he was young, and stupid, and understood nothing. God help him, even if the violinist did turn out to be an omega, they would still be doomed. He'd be mad beyond reprieve, or hate Lestat intensely, or both. It was almost worth letting the whole sordid mess play out, if not for the fact that Lestat threatened to destroy not only this stupid boy, but the entire foundation of the Children of Darkness.

Armand could not let that happen. It was too painful to even consider a world outside the dark, comforting confines of the catacombs. There was nothing else.

It was a lie that had kept the grief and pain at bay for so long, Armand didn't even know the source of such feelings anymore; only that they might very well drown him if they were allowed in.

\- - -

The next night, with the stage set, Armand went with his children to chase down the vampire Lestat and his fledgling mother. They answered the blonde alpha's challenges to them, now, until the conflict chased them inside a church. Armand scowled fiercely, making placating gestures to the others as they hissed, making horrible noises at the atrocity.

Already the murmur of doubt was growing; why were these two apostates not struck down the moment their feet touched the hallowed ground? "Be quiet, and rest assured that the wrath of God will be carried out on these heathens still. Go back to Les Innocents and prepare."

Lies and more lies.

Armand walked inside the chruch without hesitation. He slipped from shadow to shadow easily, bare feet on cold marble, easily avoiding the few mortals about. He had not gone into a place of worship in three hundred years, though he had known all along that he could. There was no lightning bolt, no instant immolation to suffer for such a transgression.

It was just another thread in the tapestry that shielded him from pain.

Lestat, stupid arse, thought this was a grand spectacle to point out. He did so loudly, broadcasting it out towards the rest of the coven, and Armand wanted to throttle him. How dare he upset the balance of their lives! Enough was enough.

"You'll come quietly, and without struggle, if you value the life of your dear violinist friend."

That shut him up, all right. Armand relished the flash of pain he saw in Lestat's eyes.

But the damage had been done. His coven hovered around the area, dozens of eyes on him as he walked out of the church. The coven master was undamaged. He was not smote where he stood. And neither were Lestat or Gabrielle.

Slow unravelling.

Even as they took Lestat and Gabrielle to Les Innocents, Armand felt it happening. His heart was lead, cold and heavy, in spite of their hollow victory. He breathed in the stench of the graves as if it were comforting perfume, descended into that dark womb that had been their refuge for centuries, knowing that it was all coming to a close.

Felix, to his surprise, railed against the pair of them harder than Armand could will himself to. Here already was the sinking despair of the end of it all, the weight of it in his chest making him feel numb all over and unable to fight. Now this pretty and once heartbroken omega argued with Lestat; now he was the one fighting for the core of their lives against a powerful alpha. Didn't he know it was over? Could he not accept it?

Allesandra was laughing and goading Lestat on giddily. She'd said this was coming, hadn't she. She had known it was coming. Armand hadn't listened to her, truly listened, in decades. Had he really been so deaf, so uncaring towards the woman who had been his comfort for so long?

Maybe Armand had felt it coming, too, and that was why he had closed his ears when she predicted this. He clutched to the fabric of their world even as it rotted and fell apart in his hands.

Well, they still had Nicolas, didn't they?

It was satisfying to see the anguish in Lestat's face when they revealed their trump card. Armand relished the wave of panic and brief despair that emanated from him before Gabrielle schooled him to silence again. They'd done quite a number on the beautiful, frail man, ripping his shirt open to expose the creamy skin of his shoulders and neck to their wicked teeth. Armand himself had tasted him again, kneeling in that little cage with Nicolas, gripping his silky hair to hold his head to the side as he gasped in pain.

But even that was a vain effort, in the end. His subjects scattered before Lestat's might, his unwavering conviction that their way of life was futile and unneccessary. They looked to Armand of all people for reassurance. What could he say?

_I was brought into this against my will. I knew all along it was a farce. It was just easier to play along than to face reality._

Nicolas was no longer their captive. 

The Children of Darkness were no more.

Armand looked away from Felix's imploring eyes, Eleni's questioning gaze, sending them out with the rest. He closed his ears to Allesandra's laughter and questions to Lestat. Finally, the blonde-haired vampire looked at him directly, and he had to rouse himself back into the present.

"You don't know what you have destroyed here," he hissed.

Lestat balked and grinned and claimed to the contrary with pride. Stupid fool.

Armand felt the urge to tear his eyes out of his skull pass over him suddenly, through his twitching fingers. "You don't even know your own nature, do you? Did Magnus tell you nothing?"

Ah. Now the grin faded slightly. The facade could not hide that ripple of doubt. Armand looked at the doomed and battered mortal Lestat held protectively to his chest and sneered. _Hubris._

"Let me give you a few tidbits, then, not just of the philosophy you've so gleefully stomped on. Vampires cannot exist without each other, unless they are like your dear bitch mother there. She longs to be away from you even now. But you, monsieur de Lioncourt, will never be complete without a mate." He said it as if it were a curse, and a curse it was. Lestat had not yet begun to live it like Armand had for three centuries.

Lestat looked at him, hard, and his will was locked in battle against Armand's in the taut space between them. He understood nothing, didn't even realize it-- and still, he won. The auburn-haired boy looked down in deference, battered and lost in the empty catacombs.

When Lestat left with Gabrielle and his precious Nicolas, Armand let out a long sigh, and it felt like he'd been holding in that breath for centuries.

\- - -

There was nothing to do but move on.

The one credos of the Children of Darkness that Armand believed, beyond the trappings of the rest of their religious fervor, was that those who would threaten their secrecy must be destroyed. Now, with no moral compass to guide them, no overarching belief, none of his children were fit for the world.

When Allesandra lit the funeral pyre, Armand felt a fresh, cold knife digging into his heart. She looked at him with such depth of feeling that tears came to his eyes. "Oh, beautiful angel," she said softly. "The world is too cruel now for me. It has been since before you came into existence, though without you, I would have left so much sooner. Dry your eyes."

He felt like he was hearing her, truly hearing her, for the first time in a century. She embraced him- and then she was gone. Her laughter was drowned out by the roar of the flames as they consumed her.

Armand turned around, red streaks drying on his expressionless face, and looked at his terrified subjects.

They screamed as he forced them into the pyre. No laughter now, only the scrabbling of the doomed and the disbelieving. It reminded him of a nightmare he might have lived a lifetime ago, made him snarl and twist out of the beseeching grasp of those who, once upon a time, trusted him with their lives.

All the more reason they had to be destroyed.


End file.
